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nv 
WALTER BESANT 

AUTHOR OF " ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN ' 
" FIFTY YEARS AGO " ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1892 



h 



3<s?t.y X 






Copyright, 1S92, by Harper & Brothers. 

All rights reserved. 



PREFACE 



In the following chapters it has been my endeavor to 
present pictures of the City of London — instantaneous pho- 
tographs, showing the streets, the buildings, and the citizens 
at work and at play. Above all, the citizens : with their 
daily life in the streets, in the shops, in the churches, and in 
the houses ; the merchant in the quays and on 'Change ; 
the shopkeeper of Cheapside ; the priests and the monks 
and the friars ; the shouting of those who sell ; the laughter 
and singing of those who feast and drink ; the ringing of 
the bells ; the dragging of the criminal to the pillory; the 
Riding of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen ; the river with its 
boats and barges ; the cheerful sound of pipe and tabor ; 
the stage with its tumblers and its rope-dancers ; the 'pren- 
tices with their clubs ; the evening dance in the streets. I 
want my pictures to show all these things. The history of 
London has been undertaken by many writers ; the present- 
ment of the city and the people from age to age has never 
yet, I believe, been attempted. 

The sources whence one derives the materials for such 
an attempt are, in the earlier stages, perfectly well known 
and accessible to all. Chaucer, Froissart, Lydgate, certain 
volumes of the " Early English Text Society," occur to 
everybody. But the richest mine, for him who digs after 
the daily life of the London citizen during the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, is certainly Riley's great book of 
Extracts from the City Records. If there is any life or 



vi PREFACE 

any reality in the three chapters of this book which treat of 
the Plantagenet period, it is certainly due to Riley. 

As regards the Tudor period, the wealth of illustration is 
astonishing. One might as well be writing of the city life 
of this day, so copious are the materials. But it is not to 
Shakespeare and the dramatists that we must look for the 
details so much as to the minor writers, the moralists and 
satirists, of whom the ordinary world knows nothing. 

The reign of Charles II. directs one to the Plague and to 
the Fire. I was fortunate in finding two tracts, one dealing 
with the plague of 1603, and the other with that of 1625. 
These, though they are earlier than Charles II., were inval- 
uable, as illustrating the effect of the pestilence in causing 
an exodus of all who could get away, which took place as 
much in these earlier years as in 1666. Contemporary tracts 
on the state of London after the Fire, also happily discov- 
ered, proved useful. And when the Plague and the Fire 
had been dismissed, another extraordinary piece of good 
fortune put me in possession of certain household accounts 
which enabled me to present a bourgeois family of the pe- 
riod at home. 

Where there is so much to speak about, one must exer- 
cise care in selection. I have endeavored to avoid as much 
as possible those points which have already been presented. 
For instance, the growth of the municipality, the rise of 
the Guilds and the Companies, the laws of London, the re- 
lations of the City to the Sovereign and the State— these 
things belong to the continuous historian, not to him 
who draws a picture of a given time. In the latter case it 
is the effect of law, not its growth, which is important. 
Thus I have spoken of the pilgrimizing in the time of 
Henry II.; of the Mysteries of that time; things that be- 
longed to the daily life ; rather than to matters of policy, 



PREFACE vii 

the stubborn tenacity of the City, or the changes that were 
coming over the conditions of existence and of trade. 
Again, in Plantagenet London one might have dwelt at 
length upon the action taken by London in successive civil 
wars. That, again, belongs to the historian. I have con- 
tented myself with sketching the churches and the monas- 
teries, the palaces and the men-at-arms, the merchants and 
the workmen. 

Again, in the time of George II., the increase of trade, 
which then advanced by leaps and bounds, the widening of 
the world to London enterprise, the part which London took 
in the conquest of India and the ejection of France from 
North America belong to history. For my own part I have 
preferred to show the position, the influence, and the work 
of the Church at a time generally believed to be the deadest 
period in the whole history of the Church of England. This 
done, I have gone on to illustrate the day-by-day life of the 
citizens, with the prices of things, the management, and the 
appearance of the City. 

One thing remains to be said. Mr. Loftie, in his His- 
tory of London (Stadford), first gave the world a recon- 
struction of the ground — the terrain— of London and its 
environs before ever a house was erected or an acre cleared. 
The first chapter of this book — that on Roman London and 
After — is chiefly due to a study of this map, and to realiz- 
ing what that map means when applied to the scanty records 
of Augusta. This map enabled me to recover the years 
which followed the retreat of the Romans. I cannot allow 
this chapter to be called a Theory. It is, I venture to claim 
for it, nothing less than a Recovery. 

WALTER BESANT. 

United University Club: 
May 2, 1892. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. AFTER THE ROMANS i 

II. SAXON AND NORMAN 43 

III. PLANTAGENET to 5 

IV. PLANTAGENET — Continued 155 

V. PLANTAGENET— CONTINUED 215 

VI. TUDOR 263 

VII. TUDOR — Continued 320 

VIII. CHARLES THE SECOND 37 i 

IX. GEORGE THE SECOND ' 429 

INDEX 501 



LLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Stowe's Monument, in North Aisle of St. Andrew Under- 

shaft 2 

Roman Marble Sarcophagus. Guildhall 4 

Statues of Mercury, Apollo, and Jupiter or Neptune : found 

in the Thames, 1837 6 

Bronze Articles for Domestic Use 8 

Bronze Fibula and other Ornaments : found in London . . 11 

Roman Pavement : Leadcnhall Street 14 

Bronze Bust of the Emperor Hadrian : found in the Thames. 

British Museum 17 

A Bit of Roman Wall. From a Photograph by W. H. Grove, 

174 Brompton Road 20 

Lamps and Lamp-stand 23 

Sepulchral Cists, etc. : found in Warwick Square, Newgate 

Street, 1881. British Museum 32 

Roman Keys. Guildhall 34 

Toilet Articles — Hair-pins ; Hair-pin (Sarina, Wife of Ha- 
drian) ; Bone Comb and Case (Cloahham) ; Bone Comb 

{Lower Thames Street) 36 

Statuettes : found in Thames Street, 1 88g. Guildhall . . . 3Q 

Roman Amphora; 41 

London Stone, Cannon Street, as it appeared in 1800 , . . 43 

Battle between Two Armed Knights 49 

River Tilting in the Twelfth Century 32 

Crypt : Remains of the Collegiate Church of St. Martin-le- 

Grand, N.E 34 

The Founder s Tomb, St. Bartholomew the Great, E.Cfound- 

ed 1 1 23 37 

South Ambulatory, Church of St. Bartholomew, founded 11 23 61 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

St. Katherine' s by the Tower 64 

Interior of the Church of St. Katherine s by the Tower . . 63 

Dowgate Dock 68 

St. Saviour's Dock 7° 

North-east View of St. Saviour s 73 

Plan of Saxon Church, Bradford-on-Avon 76 

Saxon Church, Seventh or Eighth Century, Bradford-on- 
Avon 77 

Sculptured Angel, Saxon Church 78 

View of Interior of Saxon Church, showing very remarka- 
ble Chancel Arch and Entrance 7Q 

First Stone London Bridge, begun A .D. 117 6 82 

Crypt, or Lower Chapel, of St. Thomas's Church, London 

Bridge 84 

West Front of Chapel on London Bridge 83 

Part of London Wall in the Church-yard of St. Giles, Crip- 

plegate 88 

Entrance to Knights Hospitallers go 

Buildings of Knights Hospitallers Qi 

Crypt in Bow Church, from the North Side, near the East 

End of the Nave 03 

Interior of Porch of the Parish Church of St. Alphege, L071- 
don Wall, formerly the Chapel of the Priory of St. El- 

synge Spital 97 

The Arms and Seals of the Prior and Convent of St. Saviour 

at Bermondsey 101 

A City Monument 107 

Ruins (/7Qo) of the Nunnery of St. Helen, Bishopsgate Street no 

St. Helen s, Bishopsgate 113 

South-west View of the Ititerior of the Church of St. Helen, 

Bishopsgate Street 116 

Church of St. Augustin (St. Austin) ng 

Church of Atistin Friars 122 

Christ's Hospital, from the Cloisters 126 

The Charter House 130 

Ruins of the Convent of Nuns Minories, 18 10 133 

Bow Church, Mile End Road 137 

North-east View of Walt ham Abbey Church, Essex . . . 140 



ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 

PAGE 

Waltham Abbey Church, Essex, before Restoration . . . 143 

Porch of St. Sepulchre's Church 14S 

South \ r iciu of the Palace of the Bishops of Winchester, near 

St. Saviour's 132 

Charing- Cross. Erected by Edward I. in memory of Queen 

Eleanor of Castile . 136 

Church of St. Paul's before the Fire 138 

Monuments of St. Paul's which survived the Fire (east end 

of North Crypt) ' 160 

Ancient North-east View of Bishopsgate Street 162 

The College of Arms, or Herald's Office 164 

Bridewell 163 

View of the Savoy from the Thames 163 

View of the South Front of Baynard's Castle, about 1640 . 167 
View of Cold Harbor, in Thames Street, about 1600 . . . iji 

Crosby House, Bishopsgate Street jyj 

Interior of Crosby Hall 1J3 

Interior of part of Crosby Hall, called the Council Room, 

looking East jyS 

Gateway, etc., in Crosby Square (now destroyed) .... 1S0 

Crosby Hall j8j 

North-east View of Crosby Hall, shozuing part of the Inte- 
rior of the Great Hall iSy 

Gerrard's Hall igi 

Bridewell Palace, about 1660, with the Entrance to the Fleet 

River, part of the Black Friars, etc igj 

The Thames Front, A.D. 1340 jgy 

Ancient Court of Bridewell Palace 201 

Old Charing Cross 216 

The Strand (1347), with the Strand Cross, Covent Garden, 
and the Procession of Edward VI. to his Coronation at 

Westminster 241 

Arms of Sir Richard Whittington 244 

Arms granted to the Craft of the Ironmongers of London by 

Lancaster King of Arms, A.D. 1466 246 

Guildhall, King Street, London 248 

Blackwell Hall, King Street 231 

. Indent Plate 234 



XIV ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Conduit, near Bayswater 257 

South-east View of Stepney Church 239 

Boar in Eastcheap 264 

The View of London Bridge from East to West . . . .27/ 

The Pool 275 

Burghley House 28J 

I If ord Almshouses 287 

Old Tavern 289 

Front of Sir Paul Pinder's House, on the West Side of 

Bishopsgate Street Without 291 

The Royal Exchange, CornJiill 293 

The Steel Yard, etc., Thames Street, after the Great Fire of 

l666 2QQ 

Collcgii Greshamensis a Latere Occidentali Prospectus a.d. 

1739 302 

Curious Pump 303 

Newgate 313 

Sign of the Three Kings, Bucklersbury 321 

The Manner of Burning Anne Askew, fohn Lacels, John 
Adams, and Nicolas Belenian, with certane of ye Coun- 

sell sitting in Smithfield J26 

Old Fountain Inn in the Alinories. Taken down in 1793 . 329 
South-west View of an Ancient Structure in Ship Yard, 

Temple Bar 333 

Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney 341 

Dr. Shaw preaching at St. Paul's Cross 347 

The Old Bull and Mouth Inn, St. A/artin's-le-Grand. Now- 
pulled down 333 

Globe Theatre 337 

Inside of the Red Bull Playhouse 33Q 

South View of Falcon Tavern, on the Bank Side, Southwark, 

as it appeared in 1S03 363 

Palace of Whitehall in the Reign of fames II. 373 

Hungerford Market 380 

Cheapside 382 

Fleet Street 383 

Below Bridge 389 

Old East India House 396 



ILLUSTRATIONS xv 

PAGE 

Sion College jpS 

John Bunyan's Meeting-house in Zoar Street 401 

Old Grocers' Hall, used for Bank of England 403 

London after the Fire 403 

Old St. Paul's, with the Porch of Inigo Jones 411 

Houses in St. Katherine's. Pulled down in 1827 .... 432 

Lud Gate 433 

Davenant's School 439 

Sign 444 

St. Dun stan's in the West 443 

Approach to London Bridge 44J 

Above Bridge 433 

St. James's Palace — March of the Guards 436 

Ranelagh 43^ 

North View of the Marshalsea, Southward 461 

Charing Cross 463 

A Dish of Tea 46Q 

Visiting Card 478 

Vauxhall 481 

Sir John Fielding's Court, Bow Street 487 

Lnterior of St. Stephen, Walbrook 4Q1 

Concert Ticket 493 



LONDON 



AFTER THE ROMANS 

THE only real authorities for the events which 
took place in Britain during the fifth and sixth 
centuries are Gildas and the Anglo-Saxon CJironicle. 
There are other writers — Ethelwerd, for instance, who 
copied the Chronicle, and adds nothing ; and Nennius, 
whose work, edited by one Mark the Hermit in the 
tenth century, was found in the Vatican. The first 
edition was published in London in the year 1819, in 
the original Latin, by the Rev. William Gunn. Nen- 
nius gives a brief account of King Arthur and his ex- 
ploits, but he affords little or no information that is 
of use to us. The work of Richard of Cirencester is 
extremely valuable on account of its topography ; it 
is also interesting as the work of the first English an- 
tiquary. But he belonged to the fourteenth century, 
and has added nothing to the history, of which he 
knew no more — less, indeed — than we ourselves can 
discover. The book named after Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth is not worth a moment's serious considera- 
tion. In Bede's Ecclesiastical History passages may 
be found which throw side lights on this period, but 
they are few. 



LONDON 



Gildas, called Badonicus, is supposed to have been 
born in or about the year 520, in Wales. A great mass 
of legend has collected about the name of Gildas. He 

was the son of a British 
kinglet; his three -and- 
twenty brothers fought 
under King Arthur. He 
himself preached, taught, 
and in the matter of mir- 
acles was greatly blessed. 
He wrote — if he did 
write — about the year 
560, and is therefore con- 
temporary with the 
events of which he 
speaks. His book con- 
tains a vast quantity of 
rhetoric to a very small 
amount of history. Un- 
fortunately for him, he 
was called by his admir- 
ing fellow-monks, in his 
lifetime, Sapiens — the 
Wise. Perhaps, in order 
to live up to this desig- 
nation, he was fain to as- 
sume the garb and lan- 
guage of a prophet, and, 
with what he thought prophetic force, which we 
now perceive to be ecclesiastical inflation, he pro- 
ceeded to admonish princes and people of their sins. 
Every age, to the ecclesiastical prophet as to the sec- 
ular satirist, is an age of unbounded profligacy ; of 




STOWE'S MONUMENT, IN NORTH AISLE OF 
ST. ANDREW UNDERSHAFT 



AFTER THE ROMANS 3 

vice such as the world has never before witnessed ; of 
luxury advanced to heights hitherto untrodden ; of 
license, wantonness, riot unbridled and unparalleled, 
insomuch that the city of Jerusalem, even when under 
the soft influences of Ahola and Aholibah, were really 
righteous and pure in comparison. No doubt Gildas 
lived in a most trying and most disappointing time. 
Things went wrong, and things went steadily from 
bad to worse. His people were defeated and driven 
continually westward ; they could not even hold to- 
gether and fight side by side against the common 
enemy; religion was forgotten in the fierce struggles 
for life, and in the fiercer civil dissensions. As for 
the enemy, Saxon, Angle, or Jute, all were alike, in 
that none had the least reverence for priest or for 
Church ; everywhere fighting, defeat, and massacre. 
Yet one cannot but think that a lower note might 
have been struck with greater advantage ; and now 
that it is impossible to learn how far the prophet's ad- 
monitions brought repentance to his kings, one regrets 
that a simple statement of the events in chronological 
order as they occurred was not thought useful or de- 
sirable in a historical work. Would you hear how 
the Sapient addresses kings? Listen. He is admon- 
ishing for his good the King of North Wales — Cune- 
glass by name : 

" Thou, too, Cuneglass, why art thou fallen into the 
filth of thy former naughtiness? Yea, since the first 
spring of thy tender youth, thou Bear, thou Rider and 
Ruler of many and Guider of the chariot which is the 
receptacle of the Bear, thou Contemner of God and 
Vilifier of his order ! Thou tawny Butcher ! Why, 
besides thine other innumerable backslidings, having 



4 LONDON 

thrown out of doors thy wife, dost thou, against the 
apostle's express prohibition, esteem her detestable 
sister, who has vowed unto God everlasting conti- 
nency, as the very flower of the celestial nymphs?" 

In similar gentle strains he approaches, and deli- 
cately touches upon, the sins of other kings. 

This kind of language is difficult to sustain, and 
sometimes leads to contradictions. Thus, in one sen- 
tence, the Sapient speaks of his countrymen as wholly 




ROMAN MARBLE SARCOPHAGUS (Guildhall) 



ignorant of the art of war, and in another he tells 
how the flower of the British youth went off to fight 
for Maximus. 

As regards the alleged luxury of the time, this poor 
monk wrote from a dismal cell, very likely of wattle 
and daub, certainly draughty and cold ; his food was 
poor and scanty ; his bed was hard ; life to him was a 
long endurance. The roasted meats, the soft pillows 
and cushions, the heated rooms of the better sort, 
seemed to him detestable and wicked luxury, especial- 
ly when he thought of the Saxons and Jutes overrun- 
ning the ruined country. Of course, in every age the 
wealthy will surround themselves with whatever com- 
forts can be procured. We are in these days, for in- 
stance, advanced to what our ancestors would have 



AFTER THE ROMANS 5 

called an inconceivable height of luxury. One would 
like to invite the luxurious Cuneglass to spend a day 
or two with a young man of the present day. Those 
who were neither rich nor free lived hardly, as they 
do to this day, but more hardly ; those who were 
young and strong, even though they were not perhaps 
trained to the use of arms, easily learned how to use 
them, and when it came to victory or death, they soon 
recovered the old British spirit. This is not the place, 
otherwise it would be interesting to show what a long 
and gallant stand was made by these people whom it 
is customary to call cowardly and luxurious — these 
ancestors of the gallant Welsh. 1 It is manifest that 
a period of two hundred years and more of peace, 
almost profound, their frontiers and their coasts guard- 
ed for them by the legions of Rome, must have low- 
ered the British spirit. But the people quickly recov- 
ered it. The Arthurian epic, it is certain, has plenty 
of foundation in fact, and perhaps poor King Cune- 
glass himself, the Bear and Butcher, wielded a valiant 
sword in spite of his family troubles. The Britons 
were, it is quite certain, prone to internal dissensions, 
which greatly assisted their defeat and conquest. But 
they had one bond of union. Their enemies were pa- 
gan ; they were Christian. Gildas addresses a nation 
of Christians, not a church planted among idolaters. 
Christian symbols and emblems have been found ev- 
erywhere on the site of Roman towns, not, it is true, 
in large quantities, but they are found ; while, though 
altars have also been found, and pagan emblems and 



1 See The Two Lost Centuries of Britain, by W. H. Babcock. Lip- 
incott, Philadelphia, 1S90 ; an excellent little work on this subiect. 



6 LONDON 

statuettes of gods, there are no ruins anywhere in 
Britain, except at Bath, of Roman temples. Their 
faith, like the Catholicism of the Irish, was their na- 
tional symbol. It separated them broadly from their 
enemies ; it gave them contempt for barbarians. The 
faith therefore flourished with great strength and 
vigor. But the popular Christianity seems to have 
been in Britannia, as everywhere, a very mixed kind 




STATUES OF MERCURY, APOLLO, AND JUPITER OR NEPTUNE, 
FOUND IN THE THAMES, 1837 



of creed. As in Southern Italy among the peasants 
there linger to this day traditions, customs, and super- 
stitions of paganism which the people call the Old 



AFTER THE ROMANS 7 

Faith, so in Britain th&re lingered among the people 
ceremonies and beliefs which the Church vainly tried 
to suppress, or craftily changed into Christian observ- 
ances. Such things linger still in Wales, though the 
traveller regards them not. In the same way the 
folk-lore of our own time in our own villages is still 
largely composed of the beliefs and superstitions in- 
herited from our old English — not British — ancestors. 
What happens is always the same, and must be the 
same. In times of religious revolution the common 
folk change the name of their God, but not his nature 
or his attributes. Apollo becomes the Christ, but in 
the minds of the Italian peasants he remains the old 
Apollo. The great Sun -God, worshipped under so 
many names and with so many attributes, remains in 
the hearts of rustics long, long centuries after mass 
has been said and the Host has been elevated. Nay, 
it has even been said that the mass itself is an adapta- 
tion of pagan ritual to Christian worship. But the 
people, whatever their old beliefs, called themselves 
Christian, and that one fact enabled them to forget 
their jealousies and quarrels in times of emergency, 
and sometimes to act together. They were Christian ; 
their enemies were pagan. It is significant that in 
one passage Gildas — who is quoted by Bede — re- 
proaches them for not converting their conquerors, 
among whom they lived. This proves, if the fact 
wanted proof, (1) that the Britons were not extermi- 
nated by their conquerors ; (2) that they were allowed 
to continue unmolested in their own religion ; and (3) 
that they kept it to themselves as a possession of their 
own, a consolation in disaster, and a mark of supe- 
riority and dignity. 



8 LONDON 

One thing is quite clear, that when the Roman le- 
gions finally withdrew, the Britons were left thorough- 
ly awakened to the fact that if they could not fight 
they must perish. They understood once more the 
great law of humanity in all ages, that those who 
would enjoy in peace must be prepared to fight in 
war. They fought, therefore, valiantly ; yet not so 
valiantly as the stronger race which came to drive 
them out. 





BRONZE ARTICLES FOR DOMESTIC USE 



In particular, however, we have to deal with the 
fate of London, which was then Augusta. Let us 
first endeavor to lay down the facts. They are to be 
drawn from two sources : the first from the meagre 
notes of the historians, the second from certain topo- 
graphical and geographical considerations. The latter 
have never yet been fully presented, and I believe that 
the conclusion to be drawn by comparing the double 
set of facts will be accepted as irresistible. 

The following are the facts related by the Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle : 



AFTER THE ROMANS 9 

a.d. 443. — This year the Britons sent over the sea to Rome, 
and begged for help against the Picts ; but they had none, be- 
cause they were themselves warring against Attila, King of the 
Huns. And then they sent to the Angles, and entreated the 
like of the Ethelings of the Angles. 

a.d. 449. — Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, King 
of the Britons, landed in Britain on the shore called Wippids- 
fleet (Ebbsfleet?), at first in aid of the Britons, but afterwards 
they fought against them. King Vortigern gave them land in 
the south-east of this county on condition that they should 
fight against the Picts. They then fought against the Picts, 
and had the victory wheresoever they came. Then they 
sent to the Angles, desired a larger force to be sent, and 
caused them to be told the worthlessness of the Britons and 
the excellence of the land. Then they soon sent thither a 
larger force in aid of the others. At that time came men 
from three tribes in Germany — from the Old Saxons, from 
the Angles, and from the Jutes. From the Jutes came the 
Kentish men and the Wightwarians — that is, the tribe which 
now dwells in Wight, and that race among the West Saxons 
which is still called the race of Jutes. From the Old Saxons 
came the men of Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. From Anglia, 
which has ever since remained waste, betwixt the Jutes and 
Saxons, came the men of East Anglia, Middle Anglia, Mercia, 
and of Northumbria. 

a.d. 455. — This year Hengist and Horsa fought against King 
Vortigern at the place called yEgelsthrop (Aylesford), and his 
brother Horsa was. slain, and after that Hengist obtained the 
kingdom, and JEsc, his son. 

a.d. 456/ — This year Hengist and ^Fsc slew four troops of 
Britons with the edge of the sword in the place which is 
named Crecganford (Crayford). 

a.d. 457. — This year Hengist and ^Esc, his son, fought 
against the Britons at a place called Crecganford, and then slew 
4000 men. And the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great 
terror fled to London. 

a.d. 465. — This year Hengist and JEsc fought against the 
Welsh near Wippidsfleet (Ebbsfleet), and there slew twelve 



IO LONDON 

Welsh ealdormen, and one of their own Thanes was slain there 
whose name was Wippid. 

a.d. 473. — This year Hengist and JEsc fought against the 
Welsh, and took spoils innumerable ; and the Welsh fled from 
the Angles like fire. 

a.d. 477. — This year ./Ella and his three sons came to the 
land of Britain with their ships at a place called Cymensrova, 
and there slew many Welsh, and some they drove in flight into 
the wood that is named Andredes-lea. (Probably the landing 
was on the coast of Sussex.) 

a.d. 485. — This year^Ella fought against the Welsh near the 
Bank of Mearcriediburn. 

a.d. 491. — This year /Ella and Cissa besieged Andredacester 
(Pevensey), and slew all that dwelt therein, so that not a single 
Briton was left. 

a.d. 495. — This year two ealdormen came to Britain, Cerdic, 
and Cynric his son, with five ships, at the place which is called 
Cerdicsore (probably Calshot Castle on Southampton water), 
and Stuf and Whitgen fought against the Britons and put them 
to flight. 

a.d. 519. — This year Cerdic and Cynric obtained the king- 
dom of the West Saxons ; and the same year they fought 
against the Britons where it is now named Cerdisford (Char- 
ford on the Avon near Fordingbridge). 

a.d. 527. — This year Cerdic and Cynric fought against the 
Britons at the place called Ardicslea. 

a.d. 530. — This year Cerdic and Cynric conquered the Island 
of Wight, and slew many men at Whit-garan-byrg (Carisbrooke, 
Isle of Wight). 

a.d. 547. — This year Ida began to reign, from whom came 
the royal race of Northumberland. 

The conquest of England was now virtually com- 
pleted. There was fighting at Old Sarum in 552 ; at 
Banbury in 556; at Bedford, at Aylesbury, and at 
Benson, in the year 571. One would judge this to be 
a last sortie made by the Welsh who had been driven 



AFTER THE ROMANS 



II 



into the fens. In the year 577 three important places 
in the west are taken — Gloucester, Bath, and Cirences- 
ter. In 584 there was fighting at Fethan-lea (Freth- 
ern), when the victor took many towns and spoils in- 
numerable ; "and wrathful he thence returned to his 




BRONZE FIBULAE AND OTHER ORNAMENTS : FOUND IN LONDON 



own." As late as 596 we hear that the king of 
the West Saxons fought, and contended incessantly 
against either the Angles (his own cousins), or the 
Welsh, or the Picts, or the Scots ; and in 607 was 
fought the great battle of Chester, in which " number- 
less " Welsh were slain, including two hundred priests 
who had come to pray for victory. 

It is therefore evident that the conquest of the 
country took a long time to effect — not less, indeed, 
than two hundred years. First, Kent, with Surrey, 
fell ; next, Sussex ; both before the end of the fifth 
century. Early in the sixth century the West Saxons 



12 LONDON 

conquered the country covered by Hampshire, a part 
of Surrey, and Dorsetshire ; next, Essex fell, and there 
was stubborn fighting for many years in the country 
about and beyond the great Middlesex forest. The 
conquest of the North concerns us little, save that it 
drew off some of those who were fighting in what af- 
terwards became the Kingdom of Mercia. I desire 
to note here only the surroundings of London, and to 
mark how, by successive steps of the invaders' march, 
it was gradually cut off, bit by bit, from the surround- 
ing country. Thus, when Kent was overrun, the 
bridge gate was closed, the roads south, south-west, 
and south-east were blocked, and the whole of that 
country cut off from London ; at the fall of Essex, 
Norfolk, and Suffolk, the eastern gate was closed, and 
that great district was cut off. When Wessex was an 
established kingdom, the river highway was closed ; 
there then remained only the western gate, and that, 
during the whole of the sixth century, led out into a 
country perpetually desolated and destroyed by war, 
so that, by the middle of the sixth century, no more 
communication whatever was possible between Lon- 
don and the rest of the country, unless the people 
made a sortie and cut their way through the enemy. 

Observe, however, that no mention whatever is made 
of London in the Chronicle. Other and less impor- 
tant towns are mentioned. Anderida or Pevensey, 
Aquae Solis or Bath, Gloucester, Chester, and many 
others ; but of London there is no mention. Consid- 
er: London, though not much greater than other 
cities in the country — York, Verulam, Lincoln, Col- 
chester, for instance — was undoubtedly the chief port 
of the country. We must not bring modern ideas to 



AFTER THE ROMANS 1 3 

bear when we read of the vast trade, the immense 
concourse of merchants, and so forth. We need not 
picture miles of docks and countless masts. Roman 
London was not modern Liverpool. Its bulk of trade 
was perfectly insignificant compared with that of the 
present. When we begin to consider the mediaeval 
trade of London this will become apparent. Still, it 
was, up to the coming of the Saxons, a vigorous and 
flourishing place, and the chief port of the country. 
Why, therefore, does the Chronicle absolutely pass 
over so great an event as the taking of London ? 

Such is the evidence of history. Let us consider 
next the evidence of topography. We shall under- 
stand what happened in London when we understand 
the exceptional position of London and the dangers 
to which the city in time of civil war was necessarily 
exposed. 

We will go back to the beginning of all things — to 
the lie of the land on which London was planted. 
The reader, if he will consult that very admirable 
book, Loftie's History of London, will find in it a most 
instructive map. It shows the terrain before the city 
was built at all. The river Thames, between Mort- 
lake on the west and Blackwall on the east, pursued a 
serpentine way, in the midst of marshes stretching 
north and south. There were marshes all the way. 
At spring tides, and at all tides a little above the com- 
mon, these marshes were under water ; they were al- 
ways swampy and covered with ponds ; half a dozen 
tributary brooks flowed into them and were lost in 
them. They varied greatly in breadth, being gener- 
ally much broader on the south side than on the 
north. On this side the higher land rose up abruptly 



14 



LONDON 



in a cliff or steep hill from twenty to five-and-thirty 
feet in height. The cliff, as we follow it from the 
east, approached the river, touched it at one point, 
and then receded again as it went westward. This 
point, where the cliff overhung the river, was the only 
possible place where the city could have been founded. 
I call it a point, but it consisted of two hillocks, 
both about thirty-five feet high, standing on either 
side the little stream of Walbrook, where it flows into 
the Thames. On one of these hills, probably that on 

the west, was a small 
fortress of the Britons, 
constructed after the 
well-known fashion of 
hill forts, numberless 
examples of which re- 
main scattered about 
the country. On the 
other hillock the Ro- 
man city, later on, was 
first commenced. 
Here, at the begin- 

ROMAN PAVEMENT: LEADENH ALL STREET nUT " Of tllC CitV W3S 

instituted very early a 
ferry over the river. On the eastern hill the Romans 
built their forum and basilica, with the offices and 
official houses and quarters. When foreign trade 
began to increase, the merchants were obliged to 
spread themselves along the bank. They built quays 
and river-walls to keep out the water, and the city 
extended laterally to east and west, just as far as was 
convenient for the purposes of trade — that is, not far- 
ther than Fleet River on the west, and the present 




AFTER THE ROMANS 1 5 

site of the Tower on the east. It then began to spread 
northward, but very slowly, because a mile of river 
front can accommodate a great working population 
with a very narrow backing of houses. When the 
city wall was built, somewhere about the year 360, 
the town had already run out in villas and gardens as 
far north as that wall. Outside the wall there was 
nothing at all, unless one may count a few scattered 
villas on the south side of the river. There was as 
yet no Westminster, but in its place a broad and 
marshy heath spread over the whole area now covered 
by the City of Westminster, Millbank, St. James's 
Park, Chelsea, and as far west as Fulham. Beyond 
the wall on the north lay dreary, uncultivated plains, 
covered with fens and swamps, stretching from the 
walls to the lower slopes of the northern hills, and to 
the foot of an immense forest, as yet wholly untouch- 
ed, afterwards called the Middlesex Forest. Frag- 
ments of this forest yet remain at Hampstead, High- 
gate, Epping, and Hainault. All through this periocT, 
therefore, and for long after, the City of London had 
a broad marsh lying on the south, another on the 
west, a third on the east, while on the north there 
stretched a barren, swampy moorland, followed by an 
immense impenetrable forest. Later on a portion of 
the land lying on the north-west, where is now Hol- 
born, was cleared and cultivated. But this was later, 
when the Roman roads which led out of London ran 
hisrh and broad over the marshes and the moors and 
through the forest primeval. The point to be remem- 
bered as connected with the marshes is this : Around 
most great towns there is found a broad belt of culti- 
vated ground protected by the wall and the garrison. 



l6 LONDON 

Here the people grow for their own use their grain 
and their fruit, and pasture their beasts and their 
swine. London, alone among great cities, never had 
any such home farm until the marsh was reclaimed. 
The cattle, which were driven daily along the roads 
into the city, grazed on pastures in Essex farms, be- 
yond the forest and the River Lea. The corn which 
filled her markets came down the river in barges from 
the inland country. All the supplies necessary for 
the daily food of the city were brought in from the 
country round. Should these supplies be cut off, 
London would be starved. 

These supplies were very large indeed. As said 
above, we may set aside as extravagant the talk of a 
vast and multitudinous throng of people, as if the 
place was already a kind of Liverpool. Augusta 
never, certainly, approached the importance of Mas- 
silia, of Bordeaux, of Antioch, of Ephesus. Nor was 
Augusta greater than other English towns. The walls 
of York enclose as large an area as those of Roman 
London. The wall of Uriconium encloses an area 
nearly equal to that of Roman London. The area of 
Calleva (Silchester), a country town of no great impor- 
tance, is nearly half as great as that of Roman Lon- 
don. But it was a large and populous city. How 
populous we cannot even approximately guess. Con- 
sidering the extent of the wall, if that affords any 
help, we find, counting the river front, that the wall 
was two miles and three-quarters in length. This is a 
great length to defend. It is, however, certain that 
the town when walled must have contained a popula- 
tion strong enough to defend their wall. The Ro- 
mans knew how to build in accordance with their 



AFTER THE ROMANS 



17 



wants and their resources. If the wall was built three 
miles long, there were certainly defenders in propor- 
tion. Now, could so 
great a length be in- jrf££%\ 

trusted to a force less 
than 20,000? The de- 
fenders of the walls of 
Jerusalem, which, after 
the taking of the third 
wall, were very much 
less than two miles in 
extent, demanded at 
least 25,000 men, as Ti- 
tus very well knew. 
Now, if every able-bod- 
ied man in London 
under the age of flve- 
and-fifty were called out 
to fight, the population, 
on the assumption of 
20,000 suitable men, 
would be about 70,000. 
If, on the other hand, 
the London citizens af- 
ter the departure of the 

Romans could man their walls with only 10,000 men, 
they would have a population of about 35,000. Now, 
the daily needs of a population of only 35,000 are very 
considerable. We have, it is true, to supply food for 
5,000,000, but the brain is incapable of comprehending 
figures and estimates of such vastness. One can bet- 
ter understand those which have to do with a popula- 
tion of 30,000 or 40,000. So much bread, so much 
2 




BRONZE BUST OF THE EMPEROR HA- 
DRIAN : FOUND IN THE THAMES 

{British Museum) 



I 8 LONDON 

meat, so much wine, beer, and fruit. Where did all 
these things come from ? Nothing, as I have said, from 
the immediate neighborhood; chiefly from Surrey and 
from Kent ; a great deal from Essex ; and the rest 
from the west country by means of the river. 

London, therefore, with a population of not less 
than 35,000, and perhaps upwards of 70,000, stood in 
the midst of marshes — marshes everywhere — marshes 
all around except in the north ; and there impenetra- 
ble forest. It depended wholly for its supplies, for 
its daily bread, for its existence, upon the country 
around. 

In order to buy these supplies it depended upon its 
trade of import and export. It was the only port in 
the kingdom ; it received the hides, the iron, and the 
slaves from inland and embarked them in the foreign 
keels ; it received from abroad the silks, the spices, 
the wines, the ecclesiastical vestments, and all the ar- 
ticles of foreign luxury, and sent them about the 
country. 

But this important place changed hands, somehow, 
without so much as a mention from the contempo- 
rary records ; and while places like Bath, Gloucester, 
Cirencester, are recorded as being besieged and tak- 
en, no word is said of London, a place of far greater 
importance. 

It has been suggested that the siege of London was 
not followed by a massacre as at Anderida, and that 
there was no great battle as at Chester ; but that the 
place was quietly surrendered and the lives of the 
people spared. This is a thing absolutely impossible 
during these two centuries. The English invader did 
not make war in such a manner. If he attacked a 



AFTER THE ROMANS 19 

town and took it by assault he killed everybody who 
did not run away. That was his method : that was 
how he understood war. If he pushed out his invad- 
ing arms he killed the occupants of the land, unless, 
which sometimes happened, they killed him, or, as 
more often happened, they ran away. But of making 
terms, sparing lives, suffering people to remain in 
peaceful occupation of their houses we hear nothing, 
because such a thing never happened until the close 
of the war, when victory was certain to one side and 
resistance was impossible to the other. Mercy was 
not as yet in the nature of Angle, Jute, or Saxon. 

Suppose, however, that it did happen. Suppose 
that after that great rout of Craysford the victorious 
army had pushed forward and taken the city, or had 
accepted surrender in this peaceful nineteenth-century 
fashion, so entirely opposite to their received and 
customary method, what would have happened next ? 

Well, there would have been continuity of occupa- 
tion. Most certainly and without doubt this conti- 
nuity of occupation would have been proved by many 
signs, tokens, and survivals. For instance, the streets. 
The old streets would have remained in their former 
positions. Had they been burned down they would 
have been rebuilt as before. Nothing is more con- 
servative and more slow to change than an old street. 
Where it is first laid out there it remains. The old 
lanes which formerly ran between gardens and at the 
back of houses, are still the narrow streets of the City. 
In their names the history of their origin remains. 
In Garlickhithe, Fyfoot Lane, Suffolk Lane, Tower 
Royal, Size Lane, Old Jewry, the Minories, and in a 
hundred other names, we have the identical mediae- 



20 



LONDON 



val streets, with the identical names given to them 
from their position and their association. And this 
though fire after fire has burned them down, and since 
one fire at least destroyed most of them at a single 
effort. A Roman town was divided, like a modern 
American town, into square blocks — insula (islands) 
they were called. Where are the insula of London ? 
There is not in the whole of London a single trace of 
the Roman street, if we except that little bit still 
called after the name given by the Saxons to a Ro- 
man road. 

Again, continuity of occupation is illustrated by 
tradition. It is impossible for the traditions of the 
past to die out if the people continue. Nay, if the 




A BIT OF ROMAN WALL 

(From a photograph by IV. H. Grove, 174 Brompton Road) 



conqueror makes slaves of the former lords, and if 
they remain in their servitude for many generations, 
yet the traditions will not die. There are traditions 



AFTER THE ROMANS 21 

of these ancient times among the Welsh, but among 
the Londoners there are none. The Romans — the 
Roman power — the ferocity of Boadicea, the victori- 
ous march of Theodosius, the conversion of the coun- 
try, the now forgotten saints and martyrs of London 
— these would have been remembered had there been 
continuity of occupation. But not a single trace re- 
mains. 

Or, again, continuity of tenure is proved by the sur- 
vival of customs. What Roman customs were ever 
observed in London ? There is not a trace of any. 
Consider, however, the customs which still linger 
among the Tuscan, the Calabrian, and the Sicilian 
peasants. They are of ancient origin ; they belong 
to the Roman time and earlier. But in London there 
has never been a custom or an observance in the least 
degree traceable to the Roman period. 

Lastly, continuity of tenure is illustrated by the 
names of the people. Now, a careful analysis of the 
names found in the records of the fourteenth century 
has been made by Riley in his Memorials of London. 
We need not consider the surnames, which are all de- 
rived from occupation, or place of birth, or some phys- 
ical peculiarity. The Christian names are for the 
most part of Norman origin ; some are Saxon ; none 
are Roman or British. 

It has been advanced by some that the municipal 
government of the town is of Roman origin. If that 
were so, it would be through the interference of the 
Church. But it is not so. I believe that all who 
have considered the subject have now acknowledged 
that the municipal institutions of London have grown 
out of the customs of the English conquerors. 



22 LONDON 

To sum up, because this is very important. When 
in the seventh century we find the Saxons in the pos- 
session of the city there is no mention made of any 
siege, attack, capture, or surrender. When, a little 
later, we are able to read contemporary history, we 
find not a single custom or law due to the survival of 
British customs. We find the courses of the old 
streets entirely changed, the very memory of the 
streets swept away ; not a single site left of any an- 
cient building. Everything is clean gone. Not a 
voice, not a legend, not a story, not a superstition re- 
mains of the stately Augusta. It is entirely vanished, 
leaving nothing behind but a wall. 

Loftie's opinion is thus summed up (London, vol. i., 
P. 54) = 

Roman evidences, rather negative, it is true, than positive to 
show that the East Saxons found London desolate, with broken 
walls, and a scanty population if any ; that they entered on 
possession with no great feeling of exultation, after no great 
military feat deserving mention in these Chronicles; and that 
they retained it only just so long as the more powerful neigh- 
boring kings allowed them. This view is the only one which 
occurs to me to account for the few facts we have. 

And that great antiquary Guest thinks that good 
reasons may be given for the belief that London for 
a while lay desolate and uninhabited. 

The evidence seems to me positive rather than 
negative, and, in fact, conclusive. London, I am con- 
vinced, must — not may, but must — have remained for 
a time desolate and empty. 

The evidence is before us, to me clear and unan- 
swerable ; it is furnished by the Chronicle of Con- 
quest, coupled with the question of supplies. The 



AFTER THE ROMANS 



23 



city could receive supplies from six approaches. One 
of these, called afterwards Watling Street, connected 
the city with the north and the west. It entered the 
walls at what became, later, Newgate. The second 
and third entered near the present Bishopsgate. One 
of these, Ermyn Street, led to the north-east, to Nor- 
folk and Suffolk, the great peninsula, with fens on one 
side and the ocean on two other sides ; the other, the 
Vicinal way, brought provisions and merchandise from 
Essex, then and long afterwards thought 
to be the garden of England. The bridge 
connected the city with the south, while ' 
the river itself was the highway between 
London and the fertile counties on either 
side the broad valley of the Thames. By 
these six ways there were brought into 
the city every day a continual supply of 




LAMPS AND LAMP-STAND 



all the necessaries of life and all its luxuries. Along 
the roads plodded the pack-horses and the heavy, 
grinding carts ; the oxen and the sheep and the pigs 
were driven to the market ; barges floated down the 
stream laden with flour, and with butter, cheese, 
poultry, honey, bacon, beans, and lentils ; and up 
the river there sailed with every flood the ships 
coming to exchange their butts of wine, their bales 



24 LONDON 

of silk, their boxes of spice, for iron, skins, and 
slaves. 

In this way London was fed and its people kept 
alive. In this way London has always been fed. 
The moorland and swamps all around continued far 
down in her history. Almost in the memory of man 
there were standing pools at Bankside, Lambeth, and 
Rotherhithe. It is not two hundred years since 
Moorfields were drained. Wild -fowl were shot on 
the low-lying lands of Westminster within the pres- 
ent century. The supplies came from without. They 
were continuous. It is impossible to keep in store 
more provisions — and those only of the most element- 
ary kind — than will last for a short period. There 
may have been a city granary, but if the supplies were 
cut off, how long would its contents continue to feed 
a population, say, of thirty-five thousand ? 

Four points, in short, must be clearly understood : 
(i) London was a port with a great trade, export 
and import. To carry on this trade she employed a 
very large number of men — slaves or free men. 

(2) If she lost her trade her merchants were ruined, 
and her people lost their work and their livelihood. 

(3) The lands immediately round London — beneath 
her walls — produced nothing. She was therefore 
wholly dependent on supplies from without. 

(4) If these supplies failed, she was starved. 

Now you have seen the testimony of history. The 
port of London closed by the ships of the Kentish 
and the Essex shores ; communications with the coun- 
try gradually cut off ; first, with the south ; next, with 
the east ; then, by the river ; lastly, by the one gate 
which still stood open, but led only into a country 



AFTER THE ROMANS 25 

ravaged by continual war, and overrun by an enemy 
who still pushed the Britons farther west. There was 
no longer any trade ; that, indeed, began to languish 
in the middle of the fifth century ; there were no lon- 
ger either exports or imports. When there were no 
longer any supplies, what happened ? What must 
have happened ? 

Let me consider the history from a contemporary 
Londoner's point of view. The Anglo-Saxon Chroni- 
cle is written from the conqueror's view ; the prophe- 
cies of Gildas take the ecclesiastical line, that misfort- 
unes fall upon a nation because of their wickedness, 
which is perfectly true if their wickedness leads them 
to cowardly surrender or flight, but not otherwise, or 
else the Saxons, whose wickedness, if you come to 
look at it, was really amazing, would themselves have 
been routed with great slaughter, and smitten hip and 
thigh. There are sins and sins. Those which do not 
corrupt a nation's valor do not cause a nation's fall. 

This is what the man of London saw. It is a hith- 
erto unpublished chapter from the Chronicle of a lay- 
man, a British citizen : 

" The Legions left us. They had gone away be- 
fore, but returned at our solicitations to drive back 
the Picts and Scots who overran the land (but reached 
not the walls of London). This done, they went away 
for good. And now, indeed, we understood that our 
long security was over, and that we must arise and 
defend ourselves, or meet with the fate that overtakes 
the weak and cowardly. They put up for us a wall 
before they went away, but the wall availed not long. 
No walls are of any avail unless there be valiant de- 
fenders behind. Then the enemy once more overran 



26 LONDON 

the country. To them were joined pirates from Ire- 
land. Thus the land of Britain seemed given over to 
destruction, especially in the North and West. The 
merchants who traded with these parts were now 
driven to sore straits, because no goods came to them 
from their friends, nor were those who were once 
wealthy able to purchase any more the luxuries which 
had formerly been their daily food. But in the lands 
east and south, and that part of the country lying 
east of the fenny country, the people were free from 
alarms, and feared nothing, being protected by the sea 
on one hand and the fens on the other ; so that we 
in London looked on with disquiet, it is true, but not 
with alarm. Nay, the situation looked hopeful when 
our people, recovering their spirit, drove out the ene- 
my, and once more sat down to cultivate the lands. 
For a few years there was peace, with plentiful har- 
vests and security. Then our trade again revived, 
and so great was the quantity of corn, hides, iron, and 
tin which was brought to our ports and shipped for 
foreign countries that the old prosperity of Augusta 
seemed destined to be doubled and trebled. Many 
merchants there were — wise men and far-seeing — who 
taught that we should take advantage of this respite 
from the greed and malice of our enemies to imitate 
the Romans, and form legions of our own, adding that 
the island wanted nothing but security to become a 
great treasure-house or garden, producing all manner 
of fruit, grain, and cattle for the maintenance and en- 
richment of the people. This counsel, however, was 
neglected. 

" Then there fell upon the country a plague which 
carried off an immense number. The priests said that 



AFTER THE ROMANS 2J 

the plague, as well as the Pict and the Scot, came 
upon us as a visitation for our sins. That may be, 
though I believe our chief and greatest sin was that 
of foolishness in not providing for our own defence. 

" Now we had long been troubled, even when the 
Count of the Saxon Shore guarded our coasts, by 
sudden descents of pirates upon our shores. These 
devils, who had fair hair and blue eyes, and were of 
greater stature than our own people, carried swords a 
yard long, and round wooden shields faced with 
leather. Some of them also had girdle daggers and 
long spears. They were extremely valiant, and, rush- 
ing upon their foes with shouts, generally bore them 
down and made them run. They seemed to know, 
being guided by the Evil One, what places were least 
defended and therefore most open to attack. Hith- 
er would they steer their keels, and landing, would 
snatch as much pillage as they could, and so sail home 
with loaded vessels, at sight of which their brothers 
and their cousins and all the ravenous crew hungered 
to join in the sport. 

" In an evil moment, truly, for Britannia, our King 
invited these people to help in driving off the other 
enemies. They willingly acceded. So the lion will- 
ingly accepts the protection of the flock and drives 
off the wolves. This done, he devours the silly sheep. 
Not long after a rumor reached the Bridge that the 
Jutes had arrived in great numbers and were warring 
with the men of Cantia. This news greatly disquiet- 
ed the City, not only because from that country, 
which was rich and populous, great quantities of food 
came to the City, with grain and hides for export, but 
also because the fleets on their way passed through 



28 LONDON 

the narrow waters between Ruim, which the Jutes 
call the Isle of Thanet, and the main -land, on their 
way to Rutupiae and thence across the sea to Gallia. 
The rumor was confirmed; and one day there came 
into the City across the Bridge, their arms having 
been thrown away, the defeated army, flying from the 
victorious Jutes. After this we learned every day of 
the capture and destruction of our rich ships in the 
narrow waters above-named, insomuch that we were 
forced to abandon this route and to attempt the 
stormy seas beyond the cliffs of Ruim ; and the perils 
of our sailors were increased, with the risk of our mer- 
chants, insomuch that prayers were offered in all the 
churches ; and those who divined and foretold the 
future, after the manner of the old times before the 
light of the Gospel shone upon us, came forth again 
and were consulted by many, especially by those who 
had ships to sail or expected ships to arrive. The 
priests continually reproached us with our sins and 
exhorted us to repentance, whereof nothing came, un- 
less it were the safety of the souls of those who re- 
pented. But while one or two counselled again that 
we should imitate the Romans and form legions of 
our own, others were for making terms with the en- 
emy, so that our trade might continue and the City 
should grow rich. In the end we did nothing. We 
did not repent, so far as I could learn, but who knows 
the human heart? So long as we could we continued 
to eat and drink of the best, and we formed no le- 
gions. 

"Why should I delay? Still the invaders flocked 
over. Of one nation all came — men, women, and chil- 
dren — leaving a desert behind. In the year of our 



AFTER THE ROMANS 29 

Lord 500, the whole of the east and most of the south 
country were in the hands of this new people. Now 
this strange thing has been observed of them. They 
love not towns, and will not willingly dwell within 
walls for some reason connected with their diabolical 
religion ; or perhaps because they suspect magic. 
Therefore, when they conquered the country, they 
occupied the lands indeed, and built thereon their 
farm-houses, but they left the towns deserted. When 
they took a place they utterly burned and destroyed 
it, and then they left it, so that at this day there are 
many once rich and flourishing towns which now 
stand desolate and deserted. For instance, the city 
and stronghold of Rutupiae, once garrisoned by the 
Second Legion ; this they took and destroyed. It is 
reported that its walls still stand, but it is quite de- 
serted. So also Anderida, where they massacred ev- 
ery man, woman, and child, and then went away, leav- 
ing the houses in ashes and the dead to the wolves ; 
and they say that Anderida still stands deserted. So, 
also, Calleva Atrebatum, which they also destroyed, 
and that, too, stands desolate. So, too, Durovernum, 
which they now call Cantwarabyrig. This they de- 
stroyed, and for many years it lay desolate, but is 
now, I learn, again peopled. So, too, alas ! the great 
and glorious Augusta, which now lies empty, a city 
lone and widowed, which before was full of people. 

"When Cantia fell to the Jutes we lost our trade 
with that fair and rich province. When the East 
Saxons and the Angles occupied the east country, and 
the South Saxons the south, trade was lost with all 
this region. Then the gates of the Vicinal Way and 
that of the Bridge were closed. Also the navigation 



30 LONDON 

of the Lower Thames became full of danger. And 
the prosperity of Augusta daily declined. Still there 
stood open the great highway which led to the middle 
of Britannia and the north, and the river afforded a 
safe way for barges and for boats from the west. But 
the time came when these avenues were closed. For 
the Saxons stretched out envious hands from their 
seaboard settlements, and presently the whole of this 
rich country, where yet lived so many great and 
wealthy families, was exposed to all the miseries of 
war. The towns were destroyed, the farms ruined, 
the cattle driven away. Where was now the wealth 
of this famous province? It was gone. Where was 
the trade of Augusta? That, too, was gone. Noth- 
ing was brought to the port for export ; the roads 
were closed ; the river was closed ; there was nothing, 
in fact, to send ; nay, there were no more households 
to buy the things we formerly sent them. They lived 
now by the shore and in the recesses of the forest, 
who once lived in great villas, lay on silken pillows, 
and drank the wine of Gaul and Spain. 

" Then we of the City saw plainly that our end was 
come ; for not only there was no more trade, but there 
was no more food. The supplies had long been scanty, 
and food was dear ; therefore those who could no lon- 
ger buy food left the town, and sallied forth westward, 
hoping to find a place of safety, but many perished of 
cold, of hunger, and by sword of the enemy. Some 
who reached towns yet untaken joined the warriors, 
and received alternate defeat and victory, yet mostly 
the former. 

" Still food became scarcer. The foreign merchants 
by this time had all gone away ; our slaves deserted 



AFTER THE ROMANS 3 I 

us ; the wharves stood desolate ; a few ships without 
cargo or crew lay moored beside our quays ; our 
churches were empty ; silence reigned in the streets. 
Now, had the enemy attacked the City there would 
have been no resistance, but no enemy appeared. We 
were left alone — perhaps forgotten. The marshes and 
moors which surround the City on all sides became 
our protection. Augusta, to the invader, was invisi- 
ble. And she was silent. Her enmity could do no 
harm, and her friendship could do no good. She was 
full of rich and precious things ; the Basilica and the 
Forum, with the columns and the statues, stood in the 
midst ; the houses contained pictures, books, baths, 
costly hangings ; yet the Saxon wanted none of these 
things. The City contained no soldiers, and therefore 
he passed it by, or even forgot its existence. 

" There came the day when no more provisions 
were left. Then those who were left, a scanty band, 
gathered in the Basilica, and it was resolved that we 
should leave the place, since we could no longer live 
in it. Some proposed to try escape by sea, some by 
land. I, with my wife and children, and others who 
agreed to accompany me, took what we could of food 
and of weapons, leaving behind us the houses where 
our lives had been so soft and happy, and went out 
by the western gate, and taking refuge where we could 
in the forest, we began our escape. Mostly we trav- 
elled by night ; we passed burning towns and flaming 
farmsteads ; we encountered hapless fugitives more 
naked and miserable than ourselves. But finally we 
arrived in safety at the town of Glevum, where we 
have found shelter and repose. 

" Every year our people are driven westward more 



32 



LONDON 



and more. There seems no frontier that will stop 
them. My sons have fallen in battle ; my daughters 
have lost their husbands; my grandchildren are taught 




SEPULCHRAL CISTS, ETC. ! FOUND IN WARWICK SQUARE, 

Newgate street, 1881 (British Museum) 



to look for nothing but continual war. Should they 
succeed in reaching our City, the old will perish ; but 
the young may take flight across the river Sabrina, 
and even among the mountains of the West — their 
last place of flight. Should they be driven from the 
hills, it will be into the sea. And of Augusta have I 
learned nothing for many years. Wherefore am I sure 
that it remains desolate and deserted to this day." 

The writer of this journal, most valuable and inter- 
esting — even unique — was not quite right. Not all 
the inhabitants of Augusta went away. In the city a 
remnant was left — there is always a remnant. Some 
of them were slaves. All of them were of the baser 
sort, whose safety, when cities are taken by assault 
and massacres are abroad, lies in their abject poverty 
and in the dens wherein they crouch. These remain- 
ed ; there were not many of them, because hunger 
had already driven away most. When the rest were 
gone they came out of their holes and looked about 



AFTER THE ROMANS 33 

them, irresolute. Seeing no enemy, they hastily shut 
and barred the city gates and sat down fearful. But 
days passed, and no attack was made upon them. 
Then they began to take courage, and they presently 
bethought them that the whole town was their own 
to plunder and to pillage. They began, therefore, 
with great joy to collect together the things which 
the people had been unable to carry with them — the 
sacred vessels from the churches and the rich embroid- 
ered robes of silk worn by the priests. They found 
soft stuffs in the villas, with which they wrapped them- 
selves ; they found curtains, rich hangings, pillows, 
cushions, carpets — all of which they took. The carved 
work and statues, books, pictures, and things which 
they understood not they broke in pieces or burned. 
They carried off their plunder to the houses on the 
river-side — the quarter which they chose as handy to 
their boats in case of an alarm and convenient for fish- 
ing — on which they now placed their chief reliance 
for food. When they found that no one molested 
them they ventured out into the Northern forest, 
where they trapped the deer and the boar. Their 
thin veneer of civilization was speedily lost : when 
they had used up all the fine clothes, when they had 
burned up all the wood-work in the place, when the 
roofs of their houses fell in, they went back to quite 
the ancient manner ; they made a circular hut with a 
fire in the middle of it, around which they crouched. 
They had no more blankets and woollen cloaks, but 
they did very well with a wild beast's skin for dress. 
Their religion slipped away and was forgotten ; in- 
deed, that was the first thing to go. But, which was 
strange, they had not even kept the remembrance of 

3 



34 



LONDON 



their ancestors' worship. If they had any religion at 
all, it was marked by cruel sacrifices to a malignant 
unseen being. 

By this time nothing remained of the old houses 
but their walls, and these, disintegrated by frost and 
rain, were mostly ready to fall ; the gardens of the 
villas, the 'beautiful gardens in which their owners 
took so much delight, were choked and overgrown 
with nettles and brambles; the mosaic pavements 
were covered up with rubbish and mould. 

How long did this go on ? For fifty years or more. 
The rude survivors of Augusta and their children 
lived neglected and forgotten, like the Arabs in the 
ruins of Palmyra. Outside they knew that a fierce 




ROMAN keys {Guildhall) 



enemy roamed the country ; sometimes they could see 
a band of them on the southern bank gazing curious- 
ly at the silent and deserted walls of the City. But 
these warriors cared nothing for cities, and shuddered, 



AFTER THE ROMANS 35 

suspecting magic at the sight of the gray wall, and 
went away again. 

One day, however, because nothing remains always 
undiscovered, there came along the great Vicinal Way 
so tough and strong, on which the tooth of Time 
gnawed in vain, a troop of East Saxons. They were 
an offshoot, a late arrival, a small colony looking 
about if haply they could find or conquer a conven- 
ient place of settlement not yet held by their own 
people. They marched along the road, and presently 
saw before them the gray walls of the City, with its 
gates and bastions. It was a city of which they had 
heard — once full of people, now, like so many others, 
a waste Chester. It was of no use to them ; they 
wanted a place convenient for farming, not a place 
encumbered with ruins of houses ; a place where they 
could set up their village community and grow their 
crops and keep their cattle. The first rush and fury 
of battle were now over. The East Saxons were at 
peace, the enemy being either driven away or killed. 
A single generation of comfort and prosperity had 
made the people milder in temper. They desired no 
longer to fight and slay. What, however, if they were 
to visit the City? 

The gate was closed. They blew their horns and 
called upon the people, if there were any, to surrender. 
There was no answer. No arrow was shot from the 
walls, not a stone was thrown, not a head was seen 
upon the bastion. Then they plied their axes upon 
the crumbling wood until the gate gave way and fell 
backward with a crash. Shouting, the men of Essex 
ran forward. But they soon ceased to shout. With- 
in they found a deserted city ; the walls of what had 



& 



LONDON 



been stately villas stood in broad gardens, but the 
houses were roofless, the pictured pavements were 
broken or covered up, the fountains were choked, the 
walls were tottering. The astonished warriors pressed 
forward. The ruined villas gave way to crumbling 
remains of smaller houses standing close together. 
The streets showed signs of traffic in deep ruts worn 
by the cart-wheels. Grass grew between the stones. 
Here and there stood buildings larger than the houses; 




TOILET ARTICLES — HAIR-PINS; HAIR-PIN (sARINA, WIFE OF HADRIAN); 
BONE COMB AND CASE (CLOAKHAM); BONE COMB (LOWER THAMES STREET) 



they, too, were roofless, but over the lintels were 
carved certain curious emblems — crosses and palm- 
branches, lambs, vine leaves, and even fish — the mean- 
ing of which they understood not. Then the men 
reached the river-side. Here there had also been a 
wall, but much of it was broken down ; and here they 
found certain circular huts thatched. Within, the fire 
was still burning in the middle of the hut. There 



AFTER THE ROMANS 37 

were signs of hurried departure — the fish was still in 
the frying-pan, the bed of dried leaves still warm. 
Where were the people? 

They were gone. They had fled in affright. When 
they heard the shouts of the Saxons, they gathered 
together their weapons and such things as they could 
carry, and they fled. They passed out by the gate of 
that road which their conquerors afterwards called 
Watling Street. Outside the City they turned north- 
ward, and plunged for safety into the pathless forest, 
whither the enemy would not follow. 

When these Saxons found that the walled area con- 
tained nothing that was of the least use to them they 
simply went away. They left it quite alone, as they 
left the places which they called Pevensey, Silchester, 
Porchester, and Richborough, and as they left many 
other waste chesters. 

Then Augusta lay silent and dead for a space. 

Presently the fugitives crept back and resumed their 
old life among the ruins and died peacefully, and were 
followed by their children. 

How, then, did London get settled again ? 

The times became peaceful : the tide of warfare 
rolled westward ; there were no more ships crossing 
with fresh invaders ; there were no more pirates hov- 
ering about the broad reaches of the Lower Thames. 
The country round London on all sides — north, south, 
east, and west — was settled and in tranquillity. The 
river was safe. Then a few merchants, finding that 
the way was open, timidly ventured up the river with 
wares such as might tempt those fair-haired savages. 
They went to the port of which the memory survived. 
No one disputed with them the possession of the 



38 LONDON 

grass-grown quays ; there were no people, there was 
no market, there were no buyers. They then sent 
messengers to the nearest settlements; these — the 
first commercial travellers, the first gentlemen of the 
road — showed spear-heads of the finest, swords of the 
stoutest, beautiful helmets and fine shields, all to be 
had in exchange for wool and hides. The people 
learned to trade, and London began to revive. The 
rustics saw things that tempted them ; new wants, 
new desires were created in their minds. Some of 
them went into the town and admired its life, how 
busy it was, how full of companionship ; and they 
thought with pity of the quiet country life and the 
long days all alone in the fields ; they desired to stay 
there ; others saw the beauty of the arts, and were at- 
tracted by natural aptitude to learn and practise them. 
Others, quicker witted than the rest, perceived how 
by trade a man may live without his own handiwork 
and by the labor of his brother man. No discovery 
ever was made more important to the world than this 
great fact. "You, my brother," said this discoverer, 
" shall continue to dig and to toil, in hot weather or 
cold ; your limbs shall stiffen and your back shall be 
bent ; I, for my part, will take your work and sell 
it in places where it is wanted. My shoulders will 
not grow round, nor will my back be bent. On the 
contrary, I shall walk jocund and erect, with a laugh- 
ing eye and a dancing leg, when you are long past 
laugh or saraband. It is an excellent division of la- 
bor. To me the market, where I shall sit at ease 
chaffering with my wares and jesting with my fellows 
and feasting at night. To you the plough and the 
sickle and the flail. An excellent division." 



AFTER THE ROiMANS 



39 



Then more mer- 
chants came, and yet 
more merchants, and 
the people began to 
flock in from the coun- 
try as they do now ; 
and London — Augus- 
ta being dead — set 
her children to work, 
making some rich, for 
an example and a 
stimulus — else no one 
would work — and 
keeping the many 
poor — else there 
would be no chance 
for the few to get 
rich. And she has 
kept them at work 
ever since. So that 
it came to pass when 
Bishop Mellitus, first 

of the bishops of London, came to his diocese in the 
year 604, he found it once more a market and a port 
with a goodly trade and a crowd of ships and a new 
people, proud, turbulent, and independent. 

So began and so grew modern London. 

To the old Rome it owes nothing, not so much as 
a tradition. Later, when another kind of influence 
began, London learned much and took much from 
Rome; but from Augusta — from Roman London — 
nothing. Roman traditions, Roman speech, Roman 
superstitions linger yet among the southern Spaniards, 




statuettes: found in Thames street, 
1889 (Guildhall) 



40 LONDON 

though the Moor conquered and held the country for 
six hundred years. They linger, in spite of many 
conquests, in France, in Italy (north and south), in 
Roumania, in Anatolia. In London alone, of all the 
places which Imperial Rome made her own, and kept 
for hundreds of years, no trace of ancient Rome re- 
mains. When London next hears of the Eternal 
City it is Rome of the Christian Church. 

Compare the conquest of London by the men of 
Essex with that of Jerusalem by Titus. The latter 
conqueror utterly destroyed the city, and drove out 
its people. One might have expected the silence of 
Silchester or Pevensey. No, the people crept back 
by degrees ; the old traditions remained and still re- 
main. Behind the monkish sites are those familiar to 
the common people. Here is the old place of execu- 
tion — the monks knew nothing of that — here is the 
valley of Hinnom ; here that of Kedron. These mem- 
ories have not died. But of the old Augusta nothing 
at all remains. Not a single tradition was preserved 
by the scanty remnant of slaves which survived the 
conquest ; not a single name survives. All the streets 
have been renamed — nay, their very course has been 
changed. The literature of the City, which, like Bor- 
deaux, had its poets and its schools of rhetoric, has 
disappeared ; it has vanished as completely as that of 
Carthage. All the memories of four hundred years 
have gone ; there is nothing left but a few fragments 
of the old wall, and these seem to contain but little 
of the Roman work : an old bath, part of the course 
of an ancient street, and the fragment which we call 
London Stone. Perhaps some portions of the Roman 
river-wall have been unearthed, but this is uncertain. 



AFTER THE ROMANS 



41 



One fact alone has been considered to suggest that 
some of the old Roman buildings remained and were 
used again for their old purposes. 

In the oldest part of the City, that which lies along 
the river-bank, the churches are mostly dedicated to 
the apostles. Those which stand farther inland are 
dedicated to local and later saints — St. Dunstan, St. 
Botolph, St. Osyth, St. Ethelburga, for instance. But 
among those along the river are the churches of St. 
Peter, St. Paul, St. Mary, St. Stephen, St. Michael. 
It is therefore suggested, but with hesitation, that 
when the East Saxons took possession they found the 
Roman basilicas still standing ; that when they be- 
came converted they learned the original purpose of 
their churches and the meaning of the emblems ; that 




ROMAN AMPHORAE 



they proceeded to rebuild them, preserving their ded- 
ications, and made them their own churches. This 
may be so, but I do not think it at all likely. It is 
possible, I say, but not probable. 



42 LONDON 

You have heard the story how Augusta disappeared, 
and how the East Saxons found it deserted, and how 
London was born, not the daughter of Augusta at all. 
Augusta was childless. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I 

The principal Roman buildings consisted of a bridge, a wall, 
a fort at either end of this bridge, and two ports — Queenhithe 
and Billingsgate. No one knows when the bridge was built : 
the wall was not erected until some time between a.d. 350 and 
a.d. 369. At that time the area enclosed by the wall was cov- 
ered with villas and gardens. The wall has been traced with 
certainty, and portions either of the original wall or the medi- 
aeval repairs have been found in many places, and may still be 
seen above-ground. The Roman remains which have been dug 
up consist of mosaic pavements, sepulchral cists, keys, toilet ar- 
ticles, lamps, fibulae, amphorae, domestic things, and a few 
bronze statuettes. Nothing whatever has been found to show 
that Augusta was ever a great city, in the sense that Massilia, 
Ephesus, Bordeaux, or Alexandria was great. 



II 

SAXON AND NORMAN 

THE citizens of New London — Augusta having 
thus perished — were from the outset a people of 
mixed race. But the Saxons, and especially the East 
Saxons, prevailed. Strangely, it is Essex which has 
always prevailed in London. The modern Cockney 
dialect, which says " laidy " and " baiby " for lady and 
baby, and " whoy " and " hoigh " for why and high, is 
pure Essex : you can hear it spoken all over the coun- 
try districts of that little-visited county : it is a dialect 
so strong that it destroys all other fashions of speech, 
even the burr of Cumberland and the broad drawl of 
Devonshire. Saxon London was mainly East Saxon. 
But, besides the new owners of London, there was, 
first of all, some remnant of the scattered Welsh. I 
do not mean the miserable survivors of Augustan 
London, found in the place when it was first entered, 
but those Britons who had taken refuge in the forests 
of Surrey, Sussex, and Middlesex, and there lived as 
they could, until they Could safely venture forth 
among their conquerors. Gildas, as we have seen, 
speaks of these people ; and their skulls remain in the 
Saxon cemeteries to prove how great a Celtic element 



44 LONDON 

survived among the English conquerors. Next, there 
were the foreign merchants. This class formed a con- 
siderable proportion of the better class ; and it grew 
larger every day, because the East Saxon was certain- 
ly not so sharp in affairs as the " man of Rouen ;" nor 
was he in business capacity equal to the Fleming and 
the German. But as happens, mutatis mutandis, at 
the present day, those who were Flemings and the 
men of Rouen, speaking their own language, under 
Ethelred, had all become Londoners, speaking the 
English tongue, under Henry Beauclerk. 

It was, indeed, a complete revolution in his man- 
ners and customs for the East Saxon when he ex- 
changed his village community for a walled town. 
Consider: at first he lived retired in the country, farm- 
ing and cattle-breeding, banded with other families 
for safety ; he kept up the customs of his fatherland, 
he carried on no trade, he suffered the old towns to 
fall into ruin ; his kinglet had no capital, but roamed 
about from place to place, administering justice in the 
royal wagon ; he enjoyed a ferocious and blood-thirsty 
religion suiting his savage disposition ; he knew only 
the simplest arts ; he could till the ground, grind his 
corn, brew beer and mead, and work a little in metals ; 
his women could spin ; he knew no letters ; he looked 
for nothing better than ever-recurring war, with inter- 
vals of peace and feasting; to die on a battle-field 
was an enviable lot, because it carried him away to 
everlasting happiness. Look at the same man four 
hundred years later. He is now a Christian ; he is, in 
a way, a scholar ; he is an architect, an artist, an illu- 
minator, a musician, a law-maker, a diplomatist, an ar- 
tificer, a caster of bells, a worker in gold and silver; 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



45 



he carries on fisheries; he is a merchant; he builds 
ships; he founds trade-guilds — he is as far removed 
from the fierce warrior who leaped ashore at Thanet 
as the Romano- Briton whom he conquered was re- 
moved from the. naked savage who opposed the arms 
of Caesar. 

The difference is chiefly due to his conversion. 
This has brought him under the influence of Rome 
Ecclesiastic. It has educated him, turned him into a 
townsman, and made growth 
possible for him. No growth 
is possible for any race until 
it first accepts the creed of 
civilization. 

London was converted in 
A.D. 604. This was a hasty 
and incomplete conversion, 
executed to order; for the 
citizens speedily relapsed. 
Then they were again con- 
verted, and in sober earnest 
put away their old gods, 
keeping only a few of the 
more favorite superstitions ; 

some of these remain still with us. They were so 
thoroughly converted that the city of London be- 
come a veritable mother of saints. There was the 
venerable Erkenwald, saint and bishop, he who built 
Bishopsgate on the site of the old Roman gate. There 
was St. Ethelburga, the wife of Sebert, the first 
Christian king ; her church still stands, though not 
the earliest building, close beside the site of the old 
gate. There was St. Osyth, queen and martyr, the 







LONDON STONE, CANNON STREET, 
AS IT APPEARED IN 1S0O 



4.6 LONDON 

mother of King Offa ; her name also survives in Size, 
or St. Osyth's, Lane, but the Church of St. Osyth was 
rededicated to St. Ben'et Sherehog (Benedict Skin- 
the-Pig) ; you may see the little old church-yard still, 
black and grimy, surrounded on th.ree sides by tall 
houses. English piety loved to dedicate churches to 
English saints — more likely these than Italian or 
French — to look after the national interests. Thus 
there were in London churches dedicated to St. 
Dunstan, St. Swithin, St. Botolph (whose affection 
for the citizens was so well known that it was recog- 
nized by four churches), St. Edmund the Martyr, and, 
later on, when the Danes got their turn, churches to 
St. Olaf and St. Magnus. 

The Englishman, thus converted, was received into 
the company of civilized nations. Scholars came 
across the Channel to teach him Latin, monks came 
to teach him the life of self-sacrifice, obedience, sub- 
mission, and abstinence. The monastery reared its 
humble walls everywhere ; the first foundation of the 
first bishop of London was a monastery. In times of 
war between the kinglets — when were there no wars ? 
— the monasteries, after the whole country had been 
converted, were spared. Therefore the people settled 
around them, and enjoyed their protection. The mon- 
astery towns grew rapidly and prospered. New arts 
were introduced and taught by the monks, new ideas 
sprang up among the people, new wants were created. 
Moreover, intercourse began with other nations — the 
ecclesiastic who journeyed to Rome took with him a 
goodly troop of priests, monks, and laymen ; they saw 
strange lands and observed strange customs. Some of 
them learned foreign languages, and even made friend- 



SAXON AND NORMAN 47 

ships with the men who spoke them, discovering that 
a man who speaks another tongue is not necessarily 
an enemy. The Englishman was changed ; yet he 
remained still, as he always does, whether he creates 
a new empire in America, or one in Australia, always 
an Englishman. 

Meantime the kinglets made war with each other, 
and London became a prize for each in turn. It 
passed from the East Saxon to the Northumbrian, to 
the Mercian, to the West Saxon, as the hegemony 
passed from one to the other. Each kinglet learned 
more and more to recognize its importance and its 
value. One of the oldest civic documents extant is a 
grant of King Ethelbald to the Bishop of Rochester. 
He gives him the right of passing one ship of his own, 
or of another's, free of toll into the port of London. 
The toll of incoming and outgoing vessels formed, 
therefore, part of the royal revenue. 

The history of London between A.D. 600 and the 
Norman Conquest is the history of England. How 
the City fell into the hands of the Danes, how it was 
finally secured by Alfred, how the Danes again ob- 
tained the City without fighting, and how the Norman 
was received in peace, belong to history. All this 
time London was steadily growing. Whatever king 
sat on the throne, her trade increased, and her wealth. 

The buildings, till long after the Norman Conquest, 
were small and mean : the better houses were timber 
frames, with shutters or lattices, but no glass for the 
windows ; the poorer houses were of wattle and daub. 
The churches were numerous and small. Some of 
them were still of wood, though a few were built of 
stone, with the simple circular arch. The first church 



48 LONDON 

of St. Paul's was destroyed by fire, a fate which awaited 
the second and the third. By the time of Edward the 
Confessor the second church was completed ; but of 
this church we have no record whatever. The Saxon 
period, as concerns London, is the darkest of any. 
You may see at the Guildhall nearly everything that 
remains of Roman London. But there is nothing, 
absolutely not one single stone, to illustrate Saxon 
London. The city which grew up over the deserted 
Augusta and flourished for four hundred years has en- 
tirely disappeared. Nothing is left of it at all. The 
chief destroyer of Saxon London was the great fire 
of 1 135, which swept London from end to end as ef- 
fectually as that of 1666. Had it not been for these 
two fires, we should very likely have still standing one 
or two of the sturdy little Saxon churches of which 
the country yet affords one surviving example. Yet 
London is not alone in having no monuments of this 
period. If we take any other town, what remains in 
it of the years A.D. 600-1000? What is left in Rome 
to mark the reigns of the eighty Popes who fill that 
period? What in Paris to illustrate the rule of the 
Carlovingians? Fire and the piety of successive gen- 
erations have destroyed all the buildings. 

For outside show the city of Edward the Confessor 
and that of the second Henry were very nearly the 
same, and so may be treated together. The churches 
burned down in 1135 were rebuilt in stone, but the 
houses presented much the same appearance. Now, 
everybody who speaks of Norman London must needs 
speak of William Fitz Stephen. He is our only au- 
thority ; all that we can do is to make commentaries 
and guesses based on the text of Fitz Stephen. 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



49 



He was a clerk in the service of Thomas a Becket ; 
he was present at the archbishop's murder ; he wrote 
a Life of the saint, to which he prefixed, by happy in- 
spiration, a brief eulogy of the City of London. It is 




BATTLE BETWEEN TWO AHMED KNIGHTS 



far too brief, but it contains facts of the most priceless 
importance. London, we learn, possessed, besides 
its great cathedral, thirteen large conventual churches 
and one hundred and twenty -six parish churches. 
The White Tower was already built on the east side ; 
the walls of the City, now kept in good repair, en- 
circled it on all sides except the river ; here the wall 
which had formerly defended the river front had been 
taken down to make way for warehouses and quays ; 
the Royal Palace stood without the City, but con- 
nected with it by a populous suburb. Those who 
lived " in the suburbs " — that is, about Chancery Lane 
and Holborn — had spacious and beautiful gardens ; 
there were also on this side pasture and meadow 
lands, with streams and water-mills ; beyond the past- 
ures was a great forest filled with wild creatures; many 
springs of water rose on the north side. The City 
was so populous that of those who went out to a 
muster, 20,000 were chosen as horsemen and 60,000 
for the foot. We will discuss the question of popula- 
tion later on. Meantime one may remark that a force 
4 



50 LONDON 

of 80,000 always ready to be called out means a popu- 
lation of 320,000 at least, which is indeed absurd, es- 
pecially when we consider that the population of 
London, as shown by the poll-tax of Richard II., was 
only about 40,000. 

There were three principal schools, but sometimes 
other schools were opened "by favor and permission." 
We are not told what schools these were ; but there 
was always a school of some kind attached to every 
monastery and nunnery. The boys were taught Latin 
verse, grammar, and rhetoric ; they disputed with each 
other in the churches on feast-days, especially about 
the "principles of grammar, and the rules of the past 
and future tenses " — truly, an agreeable pastime. 

The different trades of the City were allotted their 
own places of work and sale. Fitz Stephen does not 
name the various quarters, but they can be easily as- 
certained from Stow, though the place assigned to 
each was sometimes changed. Thus, the chief market 
and trading-place of the City was always Cheap, a 
broad, open place with booths and sheds for the ex- 
posure of wares, on the north and south. The names 
of the streets leading out of Cheap indicate the trades 
that were carried on in them. The streets called 
Wood, Milk, Iron, Honey, Poultry, mark the site of 
certain markets on the north. Those named after 
Bread, Candles, Soap, Fish, Money - changing, are 
shown on the south. Along the rivers were breweries, 
of which one remains to this day ; artificers of vari- 
ous kinds were gathered together in their own streets 
about the town. This custom of congregation was use- 
ful in more ways than one : it gave dignity to the craft 
and inspired self-respect for the craftsmen, it kept up 



SAXON AND NORMAN 5 1 

the standard of good work, it made craftsmen regard 
each other as brethren, not as enemies ; it gave them 
guilds, of which our trades-unions, which think of noth- 
ing but wages, are the degenerate successors ; and it 
brought each trade under the salutary rule of the 
Church. 

There was then — there has always been — a great 
plenty of food in the city of London ; on the river- 
bank, among the vintners, there were eating-houses 
where at all times of the day and every day there 
were cooked and sold meat and fish and every kind of 
food. Once a week, on Friday, there was a horse-fair 
in Smithfield without the walls; at this fair there were 
races every week. 

The young men of the City were greatly addicted 
to sports of all kinds: they skated in winter, they tilted 
on the water and on land, they fought, wrestled, prac- 
tised archery, danced, and sang. They were a turbu- 
lent, courageous, free and independent youth, proud 
of their city and its wealth, proud of their power and 
their freedom, proud of the trade which came to their 
quays from every part of the world. What says Fitz 
Stephen ? 

" Aurum mittit Arabs: species et thura Sabaeus : 
Arma Scythes : oleum palmarum divite sylva 
Pingue solum Babylon: Nilus lapides pretiosos : 
Norwegi, Russi, varium grisum, sabelinas : 
Seres, purpureas vestes : Galli, sua vina." 

The good cleric is a little mixed in his geography. 
The Arabs certainly had no gold to send ; the Sa- 
baeans were, however, Arabs of Saba, in Arabia Felix : 
they sent myrrh and frankincense; spices came from 
another country. Why does he assign arms to the 



52 LONDON 

Scythians? Egypt had turquoise mines, but no other 
precious stones. The purple garments of the Seres, 
or Chinaman, are silks. Norway and Russia still send 
sables and other furs, and France, happily, still sends 
claret. 

The city (Fitz Stephen .adds), like Rome, is divided into 
wards, has annual sheriffs for its consuls, has senatorial and 
lower magistrates, sewers and aqueducts in its streets— its 
proper places and separate courts for cases of each kind, de- 
liberative, demonstrative, judicial— and has assemblies on ap- 
pointed days. I do not think there is a city with more com- 
mendable customs of church attendance, honor to God's 
ordinances, keeping sacred festivals, almsgiving, hospitality, 
confirming betrothals, contracting marriages, celebration of 
nuptials, preparing feasts, cheering the guests, and also in care 
for funerals and the interment of the dead. The only pests of 
London are the immoderate drinking of fools, and the frequen- 
cy of fires. To this may be added that nearly all the Bishops, 
Abbots, and Magnates of England are, as it were, citizens and 
freemen of London, having their own splendid houses to which 
they resort, where they spend largely when summoned to great 
Councils by the King or by their Metropolitan, or drawn thith- 
er by their own private affairs. 

A noble picture of a noble city ! 




RIVER TILTING IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY 

Let us consider the monuments of the City. There 
remains of Saxon London nothing. Of Norman Lon- 
don, the great White Tower, the crypt of Bow, the 
crypt of St. John's Priory (outside the City), part of 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



53 



the church of Bartholomew the Great, part of St. 
Ethelburga's, Bishopsgate ; there is nothing more. 1 

The cathedral of St. Paul's when Fitz Stephen 
wrote was slowly rising from its ashes. It had been 
already twice destro)/ed by fire. First, the church 
founded by Mellitus and beautified by Bishop Cedd 
and King Sebbi was burned to the ground in the year 
961. We know nothing at all of this building or of 
its successor, which was destroyed in the year 1086. 
Bishop Maurice began to rebuild the church in the 
following year, but it was two hundred years before it 
was completed. This cathedral therefore belongs to 
a later period. That which was destroyed in 1084 
must have resembled in its round arches and thick 
pillars the cathedral of Durham. 

The church and the various buildings which be- 
longed to it in the reign of Henry I. were surrounded 
by a wall. This wall included the whole area now 
known as St. Paul's Church-yard, and as far as Pater- 
noster Row on the north side. There were six gates 
to the wall ; the sites of two are preserved in the 
names of St. Paul's Alley and Paul's Chain. The 
Bishop's Palace was on the north-west corner ; the 
chapter-house was on the south side of the church; 
on the north was a charnel-house and a chapel over 
it ; close beside this was a small enclosure called Par- 
don Church-yard, where a chapel was founded by Gil- 
bert a Becket, the saint's father. This enclosure was 
afterwards converted into a beautiful cloister, painted 
with a Dance of Death, called the Dance of St. Paul's. 



'See Loftie's History of London, Appendix N, "List of Buildings 
which existed before the Great Fire." 



54 



LONDON 



Close beside Pardon Church-yard was the chapel of 
Jesus, serving for the parish church of St. Faith until 
the chapel was destroyed, when the parish obtained 
the crypt for its church. St. Faith's is now coupled 
with St. Augustine's. 




CRYPT : REMAINS OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH 
OF ST. MARTIN-LE-GRAND, N.K. 



Of the thirteen large conventual churches mentioned 
by Fitz Stephen, we may draw up a tolerably com- 
plete list : St. Martin-le-Grand, St. Katherine's by the 
Tower, St. Mary Overies, Holy Trinity Priory, St. 
Bartholomew's Priory, St. Giles's Hospital, St. Mary 
of Bethlehem, the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, 



SAXON AND NORMAN 55 

the nunnery afterwards turned into Elsing's Spital, the 
nunnery of St. John Baptist, Hollywell, the nunnery 
of Clerkenwell, the new Temple in Fleet Street, and 
the old Temple in Holborn, perhaps make up the 
thirteen. I cannot believe that Fitz Stephen could 
have included either Barking Abbey or Merton Abbey 
in his list. 

The most ancient monastic foundation, next to that 
of St. Paul's, was St. Martin's House or College. 
Why St. Martin was so popular in this country, which 
had so many saints of her own, is not easily intelligi- 
ble. Perhaps the story of the partition of the cloak 
at the gate of Amiens, while the saint was still a sol- 
dier, struck the imagination of the people. Certainly 
the saint's austerities at Liguje would not attract the 
world. In London alone there were the church of 
St. Martin's, Ludgate Hill, said to have been found- 
ed in very early Saxon times, that of St. Martin's 
Outwich, of St. Martin Orgar, St. Martin Pomary, and 
St. Martin Vintry — five parish churches to attest his 
sanctity and his popularity. 

St. Martin-le-Grand, sanctuary and collegiate church, 
was a Liberty to itself. Here criminals found safety 
and could not be arrested, a privilege which lasted 
long after the dissolution of the religious houses. 
Among the deans of St. Martin's was William of 
Wykeham. 

One church only of the whole thirteen still stands. 
Part of the present church of St. Bartholomew the 
Great is that actually built by Rahere, the first founder, 
in the beginning of the twelfth century. 

The story of Rahere is interesting but incomplete, 
and involved in many difficulties. He is variously said 



56 LONDON 

to have been the king's minstrel, the king's jester, a 
knight of good family, and a man of low origin, who 
haunted great men's tables and made them laugh — 
nothing less than the comic person of the period, en- 
tirely given over to the pleasures of the world. In 
short, the customary profligate, who presently saw 
the error of his ways, and was converted. The last 
statement is quite possible, because, as is well known, 
there was at this time a considerable revival of re- 
ligion. The story goes on to say that, being penitent, 
Rahere went on a pilgrimage. Nothing more likely. 
At this time, going on pilgrimage offered attractions 
irresistible to many men. It was a most agreeable 
way of proving one's repentance, showing a contrite 
heart, and procuring absolution. It also enabled the 
penitent to see the world, and to get a beneficial 
change of air, food, and friends. There were dangers 
on the way: they lent excitement to the journey; 
robbers waylaid those of the prilgrims who had any 
money ; fevers struck them low ; if they marched 
through the lands of the infidel, they were often at- 
tacked and stripped, if not slain ; the plains of Asia 
Minor were white with the bones of those cut off on 
their way to the Holy Land. But think of the joy, 
to one of an inquiring and curious mind who had 
never before been beyond sight of the gray old Lon- 
don walls, to be travelling in a country where every- 
thing was new — the speech, the food, the wine, the 
customs, the dress — with a goodly company, the 
length of the road beguiled by pleasant talk! Every- 
body pilgrimized who could, even the poorest and the 
lowest. The poorest could go as well as the richest, 
because the pilgrim wanted no money — he would start 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



57 



upon his tramp with an empty scrip. Such an one 
had naught to lose, and feared no robbers ; he received 
bed and supper every night at some monastery, and 
was despatched in the morning after a solid breakfast. 



: ' «H \ 



m. 



1 ■ 








THE FOUNDER'S TOMB, ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT, E.C., 
FOUNDED 1 123 



58 LONDON 

When he at length arrived at the shrine for which he 
was bound, he repeated the prayers ordered, per- 
formed the necessary crawlings, and heard the neces- 
sary masses ; he then returned home, his soul purified, 
his sins forgiven, his salvation assured, and his memory 
charged with good stories for the rest of his life. 
The English pilgrim fared sometimes to Walsingham, 
sometimes to Canterbury, sometimes farther afield. 
He journeyed on foot through France and Italy to 
Rome ; he even tramped all across Europe and Asia 
Minor, if he could be received in some great company 
guarded by the knights of St. John to the Holy Land. 
The roads in the eleventh and twelfth centuries were 
covered with pilgrims; the Mediterranean was black 
with ships going from Marseilles, from Genoa, from 
Naples, to the port of St. Jean d'Acre. Even the 
rustic, discovering that he, too, simple and unlettered 
as he was, had a soul to be saved, and that it would 
be better not to trust altogether to the last offices of 
the parish priest, threw down his spade, deserted his 
wife and his children, and went off on pilgrimage. At 
last the bishops interfered, and enjoined that no one 
should be considered and received as a pilgrim who 
could not produce an episcopal license. It was no 
longer enough for a man to get repentance in order to 
get the run of the road and of his teeth ; and, since 
the episcopal license was not granted to everybody, 
the rustics had to fall back on what the parish church 
afforded, and have ever since been contented with her 
advice and authority. 

There was an Office of Pilgrims, which was to be 
rendered in the following fashion: 



SAXON AND NORMAN 59 

Two of the second stall, who may be put in the table at the 
pleasure of the writer, shall be clothed in a Tunic, with copes 
above, carrying staves across, and scrips in the manner of Pil- 
grims; and they shall have cappcllP over their heads, and be 
bearded. Let them go from the Vestiary, singing a hymn, 
"Jesus, our redemption," advancing with a slow step, through 
the right aisle of the Church, as far as the Western gates, and 
there stopping, sing a hymn as far as that place, " You shall be 
satisfied with my likeness." Then a certain Priest of the higher 
stall, written in the table, clothed in an Alb and Amess, barefoot- 
ed, carrying a cross upon his right shoulder, with a look cast 
downward, coming to them through the right aisle of the 
Church, shall suddenly stand between them, and say, " What 
are these discourses ?" The Pilgrims, as it were, admiring and 
looking upon him, shall say, "Are you a stranger?" etc. The 
Priest shall answer. " In what city?" The Pilgrims shall an- 
swer, "Of Jesus of Nazareth." The Priest, looking upon both 
of them, shall say, " O fools, and slow of heart," which being 
said, the Priest immediately shall retire, and pretend to be 
going farther; but the Pilgrims hurrying up, and following 
him, shall detain him, as it were, inviting him to their inn, and 
drawing him with their staves, shall show him a castle and say, 
" Stay with us." And so singing they shall lead him as far as 
a tent in the middle of the nave of the Church, made in the re- 
semblance of the Castle Emmaus. When they have ascended 
thither, and sat at a table ready prepared, the Lord sitting be- 
tween them shall break the bread ; and being discovered by 
this means, shall suddenly retire, and vanish from their sight. 
But they, amazed as it were, rising, with their countenances 
turned to each other, shall sing lamentably " Alleluia," with the 
verse, " Did not our heart burn," etc., which being renewed, 
turning themselves towards the stall, they shall sing this verse, 
" Tell us, Mary." Then a certain person of the higher stall, 
clothed in a Dalmatick and Amess, and bound round in the 
manner of a woman, shall answer, " The Sepulchre of Christ ; 
the Angels are witnesses." Then he shall extend and unfold 

1 A hat or bonnet. Du Cange. 



60 LONDON 

a cloth from one part, instead of clothes, and throw it before 
the great gate of the Choir. Afterwards he shall say, " Christ 
is risen." The Choir shall sing two other verses, following, and 
then the Master shall go within ; a procession be made ; and 
Vespers be ended. 1 

There was also a Consecration of Pilgrims, as fol- 
lows : 

The Pilgrims first confessed all their sins, after which they 
lay prostrate before the Altar. Particular prayers and psalms 
were then said over them, and after every psalm (with manifest 
skilful appropriation) the Gloria Patri ; the Psalm, Ad te, Do- 
mine, levavi ; and the Miserere. At the end of these, the 
Pilgrims arose from their prostrate position, and the Priest 
consecrated their scrips and staves, saying, " The Lord be 
with you," and " let us pray," etc. He next sprinkled holy 
water upon their scrips and staves, and placed the scrip around 
the neck of each pilgrim, with other religious services. After- 
wards he delivered to them the staff with similar prayers. If 
any of the Pilgrims were going to Jerusalem, their garments 
were in readiness, marked with the cross, and the crosses were 
consecrated, and holy water sprinkled over them. The gar- 
ments and crosses were then delivered to the Pilgrims, ac- 
companied by appropriate prayers. The service concluded 
with the Mass De Iter Agentibus? 

Rahere, therefore, among the rest, pilgrimized to 
Rome. Now it happened that on the way, either go- 
ing or returning, he fell grievously sick and was like 
to die. As medical science in those days commanded 
but small confidence, men naturally turned to the 
saints, and besieged them with petitions for renewed 
health. Rahere betook himself to St. Bartholomew, 
to whom he promised a hospital for poor men should 
he recover. Most fortunately for London, St. Bar- 

1 Fosbrooke's Monachism. ! Foshrooke. 




SOUTH AMBULATORY, CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, FOUNDED 1123 



SAXON AND NORMAN 63 

tholomew graciously accepted the proposal, and cured 
the pilgrim. Rahere therefore returned : he chose 
the site, and was about to build the hospital, when 
the saint appeared to him and ordered him to found, 
as well, a church. Rahere promised. He even went 
beyond his promise : he founded his hospital of St. 
Bartholomew, which still exists, a perennial fountain 
of life and health, and, besides this, a priory for 
canons regular, and a church for the priory. The 
church still stands, one of the most noble monuments 
in London. One Alfune, who had founded the church 
Of St. Giles Cripplegate, became the first Hospitaller, 
going every day to the shambles to beg for meat for 
the sick poor. Rahere became the first prior of his 
own foundation, and now lies buried in his church 
within a splendid tomb called after his name, but of 
fifteenth-century work. 

The mysterious part of the story is how Rahere, a 
simple gentleman, if not a jester, was able to raise 
this splendid structure and to found so noble a hospi- 
tal. For, even supposing the hospital and priory to 
have been at first small and insignificant, the church 
itself remains, a monument of lavish and pious benefi- 
cence. The story, in order to account for the build- 
ing of so great a church, goes off into a drivelling ac- 
count of how Rahere feigned to be a simple idiot. 

A great many people every year visit this noble 
church, now partly restored. Very few of them take 
the trouble to step round to the back of the church. 
Yet there are one or two things worth noting in that 
nest of low courts and squalid streets. Cloth Fair, 
for instance, still possesses a few of its old timbered 
and enabled houses. But on the other side a small 



6 4 



LONDON 



portion of the old monastery church-yard yet remains, 
and, in a row of two or three cottages, each with a 
tiny garden in front: a cottage-garden close to Smith- 
field — survives a memory of the garden which once 
stretched over this monastery court. 







grfllii 


P 31 ^ 


i'P 


fcff 


j ^— --- - ■-=- 






ST. katherine's by the tower 



Some of the other foundations enumerated were 
only recently founded when Fitz Stephen wrote, and 
rightly belong to Plantagenet London. But the no- 
ble foundation of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was due 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



65 



to Matilda, queen of Henry I., who also founded St. 
Giles's Hospital, beside St. Giles-in-the-Fields. And 
the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the chief seat in 
England of the Knights Hospitallers, was founded in 
the year 1100, by 
Jordan Briset, and 
Muriel, his wife. 

St. Katherine's by 
the Tower was first 
founded by Matilda, 
wife of King Ste- 
phen. This, the most 
interesting of all the 
city foundations, has 
survived, in degraded 
form, to the present 
day. Its appearance 
when it was pulled 
down, sixty years 
ago, and as it is fig- 
ured, was very much 
unlike the original 
foundation by Queen 
Matilda. Yet the life 
of this old place had 
been continuous. 
For seven hundred 

years it remained on the spot where it was first estab- 
lished. Matilda first founded St. Katherine's, as a Jios- 
pitale paiipcrum, for the repose of the souls of her two 
children who died and were buried in the Holy Trin- 
ity Priory. It was to consist of thirteen members — 
" Brothers and Sisters." It was endowed with ccr- 
5 




^7^' 



INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF ST. KATH 
URINE'S BY THE TOWER 



66 LONDON 

tain estates which the society, after this long lapse of 
time, still enjoys ; the sisters had the right of voting 
at chapter meetings — a right which they still retain. 
The hospital was placed in the charge or custody of 
the prior of Holy Trinity. A hundred years later 
there was a dispute as to the meaning of the right of 
custody, which the priory maintained to be owner- 
ship. In the end Queen Eleanor obtained possession 
of the place, and greatly increased its wealth and dig- 
nity. Under her it consisted of a master, three broth- 
ers in orders, three sisters, and ten bedeswomen. They 
all lived in their college round the church of St. Katlv 
erine. Queen Philippa, another benefactor, further 
endowed the hospital, adding two chaplains and six 
poor scholars. Philippa's new charter, with the build- 
ing of a splendid church, raised the hospital to a posi- 
tion far above the small foundation of poor men and 
women designed by Matilda. It now stood within 
its precinct of eleven acres, possessed of its own 
courts, spiritual and temporal, its own law officers, 
and even its own prison. Its good -fortune in being 
considered the private property of the Queen Consort 
caused it to escape the general suppression of the re- 
ligious houses. It lived on — albeit a sleepy life — a 
centre of religion and education to the poor people 
among whom it was placed. It should have lived 
there till this day; it should have become the West- 
minster Abbey of East London ; but greed of gain 
destroyed it. Its venerable buildings — its chapel, 
college, cloisters, and courts were all destroyed sixty 
years ago in order to construct on their site the docks 
called St. Katherine's, which were not wanted for the 
trade of the City. In order to construct docks, in ri- 



SAXON AND NORMAN 67 

valry with other docks already established, this most 
precious monument of the past — the Abbey Church 
of East London — was ruthlessly destroyed. Who 
would believe such a thing? The dust and ashes of 
the nameless dead which rilled its burying-yard were 
carried away and used to fill up certain old reservoirs, 
on the site of which were built streets and squares ; 
and in Regent's Park they stuck up a new chapel, 
with half a dozen neat houses round it, and called 
that St. Katherine's by the Tower. Some day this 
foundation, with its income of £10,000 a year, must be 
sent back to East London, to which it belongs. Poor 
East London ! It had one — only one — ancient and 
venerable foundation, and they have wantonly and 
uselessly destroyed it. 

Everybody who visits London goes to see the Tem- 
ple Church and the courts formerly trodden by the 
Templars, now echoing the hurried feet of lawyers 
and their clerks. Their beautiful church, however, is 
that of the new Temple. There was an older Temple 
than this. It stood at the north-east corner of Chan- 
cery Lane. It was certainly some kind of quadrangu- 
lar college with its chapel, its hall, its courts, and its 
gardens. When the Templars moved to their new 
quarters, it passed into other hands and ceased to be 
a monastic place. Some of its buildings survived until 
the sixteenth century. 

Is the legend of St. Mary Overies too well-known a 
story to be retold ? Perhaps there are some readers 
who have not read the Chronicles of London Bridge, 
where it is narrated. 

Long years ago, before there was any London Bridge 
at all, a ferry plied across the river between what is 



68 



LONDON 



now Dowgate Dock and that now called St. Saviour's 
Dock — both of which exist untouched, save that the 
buildings round them are changed. At one time the 
ferry-master — he appears to have sat at home and 
taken the money while his servants tugged at the oar 
— was one Awdrey. There was no competition in the 
ferry trade of the time, so that this worthy employer 
of labor grew rich. As he became old, however, he 
fell into the vice common to rich men who are also 
old — that is to say, he became avaricious, covetous, 

and miserly; he suf- 
fered acutely from 
this failing, in so 
much that he grudg- 
ed his servants their 
very food. This mi- 
ser had a daughter, 
a lovely d am s el 
named Mary, of 
whom many young 
knights became am- 
orous. To one of 
these she lost her 
heart ; and, as too 
commonly happens, 
to the poorest, a 
thing which her fa- 
ther could not coun- 
tenance. The knight, 
therefore, not being 
able to get the con- 
sent of Awdrey pere, 
removed to another 




DOWGATE DOCK 



SAXON AND NORMAN 69 

place, guarding still the memory of his Mary, and 
still beloved by her. As there was no post in those 
days, and neither could write, they exchanged no let- 
ters, but they preserved their constancy and fidelity. 

Now behold what may happen as a punishment for 
avarice ! The old man one day, devising a way to 
save a few meals — for at a time when death is in the 
house who can think upon eating and drinking? — pre- 
tended that he was dead, and laid himself out with a 
white sheet over him. Alas ! He was cruelly mistaken. 
His servants, learning what had happened, loudly and 
openly rejoiced, stripped the larder of all that it con- 
tained, set the casks flowing, opened the bottles, and 
began to feast and sing. It was more than the old 
man could endure. He sprang from his bed and 
rushed among them ; they fled, shrieking, because 
they thought it was his ghost ; one, bolder than the 
rest, stood his ground to face the ghost, and banged 
the apparition over the head with the butt-end of a 
broken oar, so that the unlucky ghost fell down dead 
in real earnest. What happened when they came to 
bury him may be read in the book above referred to. 

The miser's fortune thereupon devolved upon his 
daughter. She immediately sent for her lover, who 
hastened to obey his mistress. Alas ! on his way the 
unlucky knight was thrown from his horse and was 
killed. The girl, distracted by this misfortune, found- 
ed a convent of sisters at the south end of the ferry, 
and taking refuge in her own Foundation, retired from 
the world. Here in course of time she died. Later 
on, another pious lady changed the convent of sisters 
to a college of priests, and very early in the twelfth 
century two Norman knights, named Pont de l'Arche 



7o 



LONDON 




ST. SAVIOUR'S MOCK 



and D'Ansey, founded here a great priory, of which 
the present Church of St. Saviour was then the chapel. 
The Effigy of Pont de l'Arche (or perhaps it is that 
of his friend D'Ansey) is still to be seen, with no in- 
scription upon it, in the church. The chancel, the 



SAXON AND NORMAN 7 I 

two transepts, and the Ladye Chapel now remain of 
the old church with its later additions, and at this 
moment they are rebuilding the nave in something 
like the former style. 

" There were in London," Fitz Stephen says, " a 
hundred and twenty-six parish churches besides the 
cathedral and conventual churches." Whatever the 
population may have been, the City has never, in her 
most crowded days, when nearly half a million lived 
within her walls, wanted more churches. A list of 
them may be found in Strype and Stow. Some of 
them — twenty-five, I think — were never rebuilt after 
the great fire. Many of them, in these days, have 
been wantonly and wickedly destroyed. Most of the 
churches were doubtless small and mean buildings. 
Fortunately, we are able to show, by the survival 
of one monument, what some of these little parish 
churches of London were like in the Saxon and early 
Norman times. There remains at Bradford-on-Avon, 
a little town of Wiltshire, a church still complete save 
for its south porch, built by St. Aldhelm in the eighth 
century. There are other partly Saxon and so-called 
Saxon remains. There is the most curious church of 
Greenstead in Essex, whose walls are trunks of oak- 
trees. Perhaps some of the London churches may 
have been built in the same way, but it is more prob- 
able that the piety of the parishioners made them of 
stone. 1 The accompanying figure shows the Bradford 
church. It is very small ; the plan shows the arrange- 
ment of nave, chancel, and north porch ; it had a south 



1 Lottie calls attention to the name of our Church St. Mary Staining, 
i.e., built of stone, as if that was an exceptional thing. 



72 LONDON 

porch, but that is gone. The walls are of thick stone ; 
the nave is 25 feet 2 inches long, and 13 feet 2 inches 
broad; the chancel is 13 feet 2 inches long, and 10 
feet broad. The height of the nave to the wall plates 
is 25 feet 3 inches; of the chancel is 18 feet. The 
chancel opens out from the nave, not with a broad 
arch, but with a narrow door only 2 feet 4 inches 
broad — a very curious arrangement. The doors of 
the south and north porches are of the same breadth. 
The church must have been very dark, but, then, win- 
dows in a cold climate, if you have no glass, must be 
as small in size and as few in number as possible. It 
was lit by a small window in the eastern wall of the 
north porch, no doubt by another in the south porch, 
by a small window in the south wall of the nave near 
the chancel, and by a fourth small window in the 
south wall of the chancel, so placed that the light, and 
sometimes the sun, should fall upon the altar during 
celebration of mass. The church was thus imperfect- 
ly lit by four small windows, each with its round arch. 
The people knelt on the stones ; there were no chairs 
or benches for them ; the bareness of the church at 
the present day is just what it was at first. There is 
no tower. Over the chancel arch are sculptured two 
angels. Outside the church, at the height of about 
ten feet, runs a course of round arcades, the only or- 
nament, unless the remains of some engaged pilasters 
on the inner door of the north porch be counted as 
ornament. A little new masonry has been added 
within, and two new windows have been cut in the 
northern wall for the purpose of giving more light. 
But with these exceptions the church is exactly as it 
was when Aldhelm reared it and dedicated it to St. 



SAXON AND NORM AX 75 

Laurence. I do not say that this little church repre- 
sents all the Saxon parish churches of London, but 
we may be sure that it represents some, and we know 
that many of them, even after they had been rebuilt 
in the twelfth century, and after mediaeval piety had 
beautified and decorated them, remained mean and 
small. In the matter of Saxon churches we have per- 
haps fewer existing specimens than we have of the 
earlier British churches. The Church of St. Mary at 
Dover, built of Roman bricks and cement ; part of St. 
Martin's, Canterbury ; and the little Cornish Church 
of Perranazabuloe belong to that earlier period. But 
the Church of St. Laurence, in the pretty old town of 
Bradford-on-Avon, is, according to Professor E. A. 
Freeman, the one surviving old English church in the 
land. 

It is impossible to assign a date for the foundation 
of these churches, but their dedication in many cases 
affords a limit of period before which they could not 
have been built. Thus, there are three churches in 
London named after St. Olave. This king, canonized 
because, with much good feeling, he left off attacking 
the English, died at the end of the tenth century. 
These churches were therefore erected in or after the 
reign of Edward the Confessor. There are two named 
after Dunstan, which gives us a limit to their dates. 
They were built between the canonization of Dunstan 
and the Norman Conquest, because after the conquest 
there were no new churches consecrated to Saxon 
saints. The dedication of St. Alban's may possibly 
mark the site of a church of Roman time, as may also 
that of St. Helen's, named after Helena, mother of 
Constantine. But I have given reasons for believing 



7 6 



LONDON 



that everything Roman perished and was forgotten. 
The churches of St. Botolph, St. Svvithin, St. Osyth, 
St. Ethelburga, already mentioned, indicate a Saxon 
foundation. St. Alphege was murdered in 1012, so 
that his church must have been built between 1012 
and 1066. One or two dedications are obscure. Why, 
for instance, was a church dedicated to St. Vedast ? 
He was a bishop of Arras, who, in the sixth century, 




&4 juuinrurcn va 



Scale 



PLAN OF SAXON CHURCH, BRADFORD-ON-AVON 



confirmed his flock in the faith by a series of miracles 
quite novel and startling. But who brought the fame 
of Vedast and the history of his miracles to the heart 
of London City? Traditionally, the two oldest church- 
es in London are those of St. Peter, Cornhill, which 
claims a Roman origin, and St. Martin's, Ludgate 
Hill, which is assigned to a certain British Prince Cad- 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



77 




SAXON CHURCH, SEVENTH OR EIGHTH CENTURY, BRADFORD-ON-AVON 



wallo. Both traditions may be neglected. In the 
oldest part of the City, that along the river, the 
churches, as I have already mentioned, are mostly 
dedicated to the Apostles. Besides the churches, all 
the monuments the City had then to show were its 
wall, its Great Tower, one or two smaller towers, and 
its Bridge. 

The original building of the bridge cannot be dis- 
covered. As long as we know anything of London, 
the bridge was there. For a long time it was a bridge 
of timber, provided with a fortified gate — one of the 
gates of the City. In the year 109 1 the Chronicler re- 
lates that on the Feast of St. Edmund, the Archbishop, 
at hour of six, a dreadful whirlwind from the south- 
east, coming from Africa — thus do authors in all ages 
seize upon the opportunity of parading their knowl- 



78 



LONDON 



edge — " from Africa !" all that way ! — blew upon the 
City, and overwhelmed upwards of six hundred houses 
and several churches, greatly damaged the Tower, and 
tore away the roof and part of the wall of St. Mary le 
Bow, in Cheapside. During the same storm the wa- 
ter in the Thames rose with such rapidity and in- 
creased so violently that London Bridge was entirely 
swept away. 

The bridge was rebuilt. Two years afterwards it 
narrowly escaped destruction when a great part of the 
City was destroyed by fire. Forty years later it did 
meet this fate in the still greater fire of 1 1 3 5. It was 
immediately rebuilt, but I suppose hurriedly, because 
thirty years later it had to be constructed anew. 

Among the clergy of London was then living one 
Peter, chaplain of a small church in the Poultry — 
where Thomas a Becket was baptized — called Cole- 
church. This man was above all others skilled in the 
craft and mystery of bridge -building. He was per- 
haps a member of the fraternity called the Pontine 

(or Bridge-building) Broth- 
ers, who about this time 
built the famous bridges at 
Avignon, Pont St. Esprit, 
Cahors, Saintes, and La 
Rochelle. He proposed to 
build a stone bridge over 
the river. In order to raise 
money for this great enterprise, offerings were asked 
and contributed by king, citizens, and even the country 
at large. The list of contributors was written out on a 
table for posterity, and preserved in the Bridge Chapel. 
This bridge, which was to last for six hundred and 




SCULPTUR3D ANGEL, SAXON CHURCH 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



79 



fifty years, took as long to build as King Solomon's 
Temple, namely, three -and -thirty years. Before it 
was finished the architect lay in his grave. When it 
was completed, the 
bridge was 926 feet 
long, and 40 feet wide 
— Stow says 30 feet ; 
it stood 60 feet above 
high water; it con- 
tained a drawbridge 
and 19 pointed arches, 
with massive piers, 
varying from 25 to 34 
feet in solidity, raised 
upon strong elm piles, 
covered with thick 
planks. The bridge 
was curiously irregu- 
lar; there was no uni- 
formity in the breadth 

of the arches' thev VIEWOF interior of saxon church, showing 

VERY REMARKABLE CHANCEL ARCH AND 

varied from 10 feet entrance 

to 32 feet. Over the 

tenth and longest pier was erected a chapel, dedicated 
to the youngest saint in the calendar, St. Thomas of 
Canterbury. The erection of a chapel on a bridge was 
by no means uncommon. Everybody, for instance, 
who has been in the South of France remembers 
the double chapel on the broken bridge at Avignon. 
Again, a chapel was built on the bridge at Droit- 
wich, in Cheshire, and one on the bridge at Wake- 
field, in Yorkshire. Like the chapel at Avignon, that 
of London Bridge contained an upper and a lower 




80 LONDON 

chapel ; the latter was built in the pier with stairs, 
making it accessible from the river. The bridge gate 
at the southern end was fortified by a double tower, 
and there was also a tower at the northern end. The 
wall, or parapet of the bridge, followed the line of 
the piers, so as to give at every pier additional room. 
The same arrangement used to be seen on the old 
bridge at Putney. The maintenance of this important 
edifice was in the hands of the Brethren of St. Thomas 
of the Bridge. 

To build a bridge was ever accounted a good work. 
Witness the lines engraved on the bridge of Culham: 

Off alle werkys in this world that ever were wrought 
Holy Churche is chefe — 

Another blessid besines is brigges to make, 

When that the pepul may not passe after greet showers, 

Dole it is to drawe a dead body out of a lake, 

That was fulled in a fount ston and a felow of oures. 



The citizens have always regarded London Bridge 
with peculiar pride and affection. There was no other 
bridge like it in the whole country, nor any which 
could compare with it for strength or for size. I 
think, indeed, that there was not in the whole of 
Europe any bridge that could compare with it ; for 
it was built not only over a broad river, but a tidal 
river, up which the flood rose and ebbed with great 
vehemence twice a day. Later on they built houses 
on either side, but at first the way was clear. The 
bridge was endowed with broad lands ; certain monks, 
called Brethren of St. Thomas on the Bridge,, were 



SAXON AND NORMAN 8l 

charged with the services in the chapel, and with 
administering the revenues for the maintenance of 
the fabric. 

The children made songs about it. One of their 
songs to which they danced taking hands has been 
preserved. It is modernized, and one knows not how 
old it is. The author of Chronicles of London Bridge 
gives it at full length, with the music. Here are two 
or three verses : 

London Bridge is broken down, 

Dance over my Lady Lee ; 
London Bridge is broken down, 

With a gay ladee. 

How shall we build it up again ? 

Dance over my Lady Lee ; 
How shall we build it up again ? 

With a gay ladee. 

Build it up with stone so strong, 

Dance over my Lady Lee ; 
Huzza! 'twill last for ages long, 

With a gay ladee. 

The City wall, repaired by Alfred, was not allowed 
to fall into decay again for the next seven hundred 
years. A recent discovery proves that the ditch was 
more ancient than had been thought. But by the 
time of King John it was greatly decayed and stop- 
ped up ; in his reign a grand restoration of the ditch 
was made by the citizens. Many fragments of the 
wall have been discovered dotted along its course, 
which is now accurately known, and can be traced. 
One of the City churches has a piece of the wall it- 
6 



82 



LONDON 



self under its north wall. In the church-yard of St. 
Alphege there remains a fragment ; in the church-yard 
of St. Giles there is a bastion. To repair the wall they 
seem to have used any materials that offered. Witness 



Mi 



Pi uj II Li Im^ImzIM^^- '^ -Jp 




FIRST STONE LONDON BRIDGE, BEGUN A.D. 1176 



the collection of capitals and pilasters found in a 
piece of the City wall, and preserved in the Guildhall. 
Witness, also, the story of King John, who, when he 
wanted stones for repairing the gates, broke down the 
stone-houses of the Jews, robbed their coffers, and used 
the stones for his repairs. When Lud Gate was pulled 
down some of these stones, with Hebrew inscriptions, 
were found, but I believe were all thrown into the 
Thames at London Bridge. 

The Tower of London, until William Longchamp, 
A.D. 1 190, enclosed it with a wall and a deep ditch, 
consisted of nothing but the great White Tower, with 
its halls and its chapel of St. John. At the western 
end of the wall, where is now Ludgate Hill Railway 
Station, stood a smaller tower called Montfichet. On 



SAXON AND NORMAN 83 

the opposite bank of the Fleet stood a stronghold, 
which afterwards became Bridewell Palace, and cover- 
ed the whole site of the broad street which now follows 
the approach to Blackfriars Bridge. The site of Tower 
Royal is preserved in the street of that name. King 
Stephen lodged there. It was afterwards given to 
the Crown, and called the Queen's Wardrobe. And 
there was another tower in Bucklersbury called Sernes 
Tower, of which no trace remains. 

Of great houses there were as yet but few — Black- 
well Hall, if it then stood, would be called Bassing* 
Hall — Aldermanbury, the predecessor of Guildhall, 
was built by this time; and we hear of certain great 
men having houses in the City — Earl Ferrars in Lom- 
bard Street next to Allhallows and Pont de l'Arche 
in Elbow Lane, Dowgate Ward, what time Henry the 
First was King. 

The water supply of the City until the later years 
of the thirteenth century was furnished by the Wal- 
brook, the Wells or Fleet rivers, and the springs or 
fountains outside the walls, of which Stow enumerates 
a great many. I suppose that the two streams very 
early became choked and fouled and unfit for drink- 
ing. But the conduits and " Bosses" of water were not 
commenced till nearly the end of the thirteenth cen- 
tury. Water-carts carried round fresh water, bringing 
it into the town from the springs and wells on the 
north. One does not find, however, any period in the 
history of London when the citizens desired plain cold 
water as a beverage. Beer was always the national 
drink ; they drank small ale for breakfast, dinner, and 
supper ; when they could get it they drank strong ale. 
Of water for washing there was not at this period so 



8 4 



LONDON 



great a demand as at present. At the same time it is 
not true to say, as was said a few years ago in the 
House of Commons, that for eight hundred years our 
people did not wash themselves. All through the 
Middle Ages the use of the hot bath was not only 
common, but frequent, and in the case of the better 
classes was almost a necessity of life. 

The population of this busy city is tolerably easy 
to calculate. The astounding statement of the good 
Fitz Stephen that London could turn out an army of 
20,000 horse and 60,000 foot, must of course, be dis- 
missed without argument. Some minds are wholly in- 
capable of understanding numbers. Perhaps Fitz 
Stephen had such a mind. Perhaps in writing the 




CRYPT OR LOWER CHAPEL OF ST. THOMAs's CHURCH, LONDON BRIDGE 



numerals the numbers got multiplied by ten — Roman 
numerals are hard to manage. If we assume an aver- 
age of 400 for each parish church, which, considering 
that the church was used daily by the people, seems 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



85 



not too little, we get a population of about 50,000. 
In the time of Richard's poll tax, 300 years later, the 
population was about 40,000. But then the City had 
been ravaged by a succession of plagues. 

The strength of the town and the power of the cit- 
izens is abundantly proved by the chronicles. In the 
year 994, Aulaf and Swegen came to fight against Lon- 
don with ninety-four ships; but "they there sustain- 
ed more harm and evil 
than they ever imagined 
that any townsmen would 
be able to do unto them." 
Early in the eleventh cen- 
tury the Londoners beat 
off the Danes again and 
again. Nor did the citi- 
zens abandon their king 
until he abandoned them. 
Later on, Edmund Eth- 
eling had to abandon his 
enterprise against Cnut, 
because the Londoners 
would not join him. Then 
there is the story about 

the body of the murdered Alphege, Archbishop of 
Canterbury. This had been deposited in St. Paul's 
Cathedral. Agelnoth, successor to Alphege, begged 
the body of Cnut for Canterbury. Cnut granted the 
request, but was afraid — timebat civium interrnptiones 
— to take away the body except by stealth. He there- 
fore caused his huscarles, or household soldiers, to 
disperse themselves, and to raise tumults at the gates 
and elsewhere. While the citizens were running 




- 



WEST FRONT OF CHAPEL ON 
LONDON BRIDGE 



86 LONDON 

everywhere to enjoy a share in the fight, the body 
was carried to the river and placed in a boat, which 
was rowed in all haste down the river. The towns- 
men sent out a party in pursuit. And, as everybody 
knows, William the Norman found it politic or neces- 
sary to confirm the liberties and laws of London. 

The house, either in Saxon and Norman time, pre- 
sented no kind of resemblance to the Roman villa. It 
had no cloisters, no hypocaust, no suite or sequence of 
rooms. This unlikeness is another proof, if any were 
wanting, that the continuity of tenure had been wholly 
broken. If the Saxons went into London, as has been 
suggested, peaceably, and left the people to carry on 
their old life and their trade in their own way, the 
Roman and British architecture, no new thing, but a 
style grown up in course of years and found fitted to 
the climate, would certainly have remained. That, 
however, was not the case. The Englishman devel- 
oped his house from the patriarchal idea. First, there 
was the common hall ; in this the household lived, 
fed, transacted business, and made their cheer in the 
evenings. It was built of timber, and to keep out the 
cold draughts it was afterwards lined with tapestry. At 
first they used simple cloths, which in great houses 
were embroidered and painted ; perches of various 
kinds were affixed to the walls whereon the weapons, 
the musical instruments, the cloaks, etc., were hung 
up. The lord and lady sat on a high seat : not, I am 
inclined to think, on a dais at the end of the hall, 
which would have been cold for them, but on a great 
chair near the fire, which was burning in the middle 
of the hall. This fashion long continued. I have my- 
self seen a college hall warmed by a fire in a brazier 



SAXON AND NORMAN 87 

burning under the lantern of the hall. The furniture 
consisted of benches ; the table was laid on trestles, 
spread with a white cloth, and removed after dinner ; 
the hall was open to all who came, on condition that 
the guest should leave his weapons at the door. The 
floor was covered with reeds, which made a clean, soft, 
and warm carpet, on which the company could, if they 
pleased, lie round the fire. They had carpets or rugs 
also, but reeds were commonly used. The traveller 
who chances to find himself at the ancient and most 
interesting town of Kingston-on-Hull, which very few 
English people, and still fewer Americans, have 
the curiosity to explore, should visit the Trinity 
House. There, among many interesting things, he 
will find a hall where reeds are still spread, but no 
longer so thickly as to form a complete carpet. I 
believe this to be the last survival of the reed car- 
pet. The times of meals were : the breakfast at about 
nine; the "noon-meat," or dinner, at twelve; and the 
" even -meat," or supper, probably at a movable time, 
depending on the length of the day. When lighting 
was costly and candles were scarce, the hours of sleep 
would be naturally longer in winter than in the sum- 
mer. In their manner of living the Saxons were fond 
of vegetables, especially of the leek, onion, and garlic. 
Beans they also had (these were introduced probably 
at the time when they commenced intercourse with 
the outer world), pease, radishes, turnips, parsley, mint, 
sage, cress, rue, and other herbs. They had nearly all 
our modern fruits, though many show by their names, 
which are Latin or Norman, a later introduction. 
They made use of butter, honey, and cheese. They 
drank ale and mead. The latter is still made, but 



88 



LONDON 







PART OF LONDON WALL IN THE CHURCH-YARD OF ST. GILES, CR1PPLEGATE 



in small quantities, in Somerset and Hereford shires. 
The Normans brought over the custom of drinking 
wine. 

In the earliest times the whole family slept in the 
common hall. The first improvement was the erection 
of the solar, or upper, chamber. This was above the 
hall, or a portion of it, or over the kitchen and buttery- 
attached to the hall. The arrangement may be still 
observed in many of the old colleges of Oxford or 
Cambridge. The solar was first the sleeping-room of 
the lord and lady : though afterwards it served not 
only this purpose, but also for an ante -chamber to 
the dormitory of the daughters and the maid -serv- 
ants. The men of the household still slept in the 
hall below. Later on, bed recesses were contrived in 
the wall, as one may find in Northumberland at the 



SAXON AND NORMAN 89 

present day. The bed was commonly, but not for the 
ladies of the house, merely a big bag stuffed with 
straw. A sheet wrapped round the body formed the 
only night-dress. But there were also pillows, blank- 
ets, and coverlets. The early English bed was quite 
as luxurious as any that followed after, until the in- 
vention of the spring-mattress gave a new and hither- 
to unhoped-for joy to the hours of night. 

The second step in advance was the ladies' bower, 
a room or suite of rooms set apart for the ladies of 
the house and their women. For the first time, as soon 
as this room was added, the women could follow their 
own avocations of embroidery, spinning, and needle- 
work of all kinds apart from the rough and noisy talk 
of the men. 

The main features, therefore, of every great house, 
whether in town or country, from the seventh to the 
twelfth century, were the hall, the solar, built over 
the kitchen and buttery, and the ladies' bower. 

There was also the garden. In all time? the Eng- 
lish have been fond of gardens. Bacon thought it 
not beneath his dignity to order the arrangement of a 
garden. Long before Bacon, a writer of the twelfth 
century describes a garden as it should be. " It should 
be adorned on this side with roses, lilies, and the mari- 
gold ; on that side with parsley, cost, fennel, southern- 
wood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, vine, det- 
tany, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, and the peony. Let 
there be beds enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, mel- 
lons, and scallions. The garden is also enriched by 
the cucumber, the soporiferous poppy, and the daffo- 
dil, and the acanthus. Nor let pot herbs be wanting, 
as beet-root, sorrel, and mallow. It is useful also to 



9 o 



LONDON 



the gardener to have anice, mustard, and wormwood. 
... A noble garden will give you medlars, quinces, 
the pear main, peaches, pears of St. Regie, pomegran- 
ates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." The 
latter fruits were perhaps attempted, but no one 
doubts their arriving at ripeness. Perhaps the writer 
sets down what he hoped would be some day achieved. 
The in-door amusements of the time were very much 
like our own. We have a little music in the evening; 
so did our forefathers ; we sometimes have a little 
dancing ; so did they, but the dancing was done for 

them ; we go to the 
theatres to see the 
mime ; in their days 
the mime made his 
theatre in the great 
man's hall. He play- 
ed the fiddle and the 
harp ; he sang songs ; 
he brought his daugh- 
ter, who walked on her 
hands and executed astonishing capers; the gleeman, 
minstrels, or jongleur was already as disreputable as 
when we find him later on with his ribauderie. Again, 
we play chess; so did our ancestors; we gamble with 
dice; so did they; we feast and drink together; so did 
they; we pass the time in talk; so did they. In a 
word, as Alphonse Karr put it, the more we change, 
the more we remain the same. 

Out-of-doors, as Fitz Stephen shows, the young men 
skated, wrestled, played ball, practised archery, held 
water tournaments, baited bull and bear, fought cocks, 
and rode races. They were also mustered sometimes 




ENTRANCE TO KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



91 



for service in the field, and went forth cheerfully, be- 
ing specially upheld by the reassuring consciousness 
that London was always on the winning side. 

The growth of the city government belongs to the 
history of London. Suffice it here to say that the 
people in all times enjoyed a freedom far above that 
possessed by any other city of 
Europe. The history of mu- 
nicipal London is a history of 
continual struggle to maintain 
this freedom against all attacks, 
and to extend it and to make 
it impregnable. Already the 
people are proud, turbulent, 
and confident in their own 
strength. They refuse to own „ 
any over lord but the King 5 
himself; there is no Earl of | 
London. They freely hold ° 
their free and open meetings — 2 
their Folk's mote — in the open h 
space outside the north-west | 

■■a 

corner of St. Paul's Church- 3 

> 

yard. That they lived roughly, 5 
enduring cold, sleeping in small 
houses in narrow courts ; that 
they suffered much from the 
long darkness of winter; that 
they were always in danger of 
fevers, agues, " putrid " throats, 
plagues, fires by night, and civil 
wars; that they were ignorant 
of letters — three schools only 




92 LONDON 

for the whole of London — all this may very well be 
understood. But these things do not make men and 
women wretched. They were not always suffering 
from preventable disease; they were not always haul- 
ing their goods out of the flames; they were not al- 
ways fighting. The first and most simple elements 
of human happiness are three, to wit : that a man 
should be in bodily health, that he should be free, 
that he should enjoy the produce of his own labor. 
All these things the Londoner possessed under the 
Norman kings nearly as much as in these days they 
can be possessed. His city has always been one of 
the healthiest in the world. Whatever freedom could 
be attained he enjoyed, and in that rich trading town 
all men who worked lived in plenty. 

The households, the way of living, the occupations 
of the women, can be clearly made out in every detail 
from the Anglo-Saxon literature. The women in the 
country made the garments, carded the wool, sheared 
the sheep, washed the things, beat the flax, ground 
the corn, sat at the spinning-wheel, and prepared the 
food. In the towns they had no shearing to do, but 
all the rest of their duty fell to their province. The 
English women excelled in embroidery. " English " 
work meant the best kind of work. They worked 
church vestments with gold and pearls and precious 
stones. " Orfrey," or embroidery in gold, was a special 
art. Of course they are accused by the ecclesiastics of 
an overweening desire to wear finery; they certainly 
curled their hair, and, one is sorry to read, they painted, 
and thereby spoiled their pretty cheeks. If the man 
was the hlaf-ord — the owner or winner of the loaf — 
the wife was the hlaf-dig, its distributor; the servants 



SAXON AND NORMAN 93 

and the retainers were hlaf-oetas, or eaters of it. 
When nunneries began to be founded, the Saxon 
ladies in great numbers forsook the world for the clois- 
ter. And here they began to learn Latin, and be- 
came able at least to carry on correspondence — speci- 
mens of which still exist — in that language. Every 
nunnery possessed a school for girls. They were 
taught to read and to write their own language and 
Latin, perhaps also rhetoric and embroidery. As the 
pious Sisters were fond of putting on violet chemises, 
tunics, and vests of delicate tissue, embroidered with 
silver and gold, and scarlet shoes, there was probably 
not much mortification of the flesh in the nunneries 
of the later Saxon times. 

This for the better class. We cannot suppose that 
the daughters of the craftsmen became scholars of the 
Nunnery. Theirs were the lower walks — to spin the 
linen and to make the bread and carry on the house- 
work. 

Let us walk into the narrow streets and see some- 
thing more closely of the townfolk. We will take the 1 
close net-work of streets south of Paul's and the Cheap- 
side, where the lanes slope down to the river. North 
of Chepe there are broad open spaces never yet built 
upon; south, every inch of ground is valuable. The 
narrow winding lanes are lined with houses on either 
side; they are for the most part houses with wooden 
fronts and roofs of timber. Here and there is a stone 
house ; here and there the great house of a noble, or 
of a City baron, or a great merchant, as greatness is 
counted. But as yet the trade of London goes not 
farther than Antwerp, or Sluys, or Bordeaux at the 



94 LONDON 

farthest. Some of the houses stand in gardens, but 
in this part, where the population is densest, most of 
the gardens have become courts ; and in the courts 
where the poorest live, those who are the porters and 
carriers, and lightermen and watermen — the servants 
of the Port — the houses are huts, not much better 
than those whose ruins may still be seen on Dart- 
moor; of four uprights, with wattle and clay for walls, 
and a thatched roof, and a fire burning on the floor in 
the middle. At the corners of the streets are laystalls, 
where everything is flung to rot and putrefy ; the 
streets are like our country lanes, narrow and muddy; 
public opinion is against shooting rubbish into the 
street, but it is done; the people walk gingerly among 
the heaps of offal and refuse. In the wooden houses, 
standing with shutters and doors wide open all the 
year round, sit the men at work, each in his own trade, 
working for his own master; every man belongs to his 
guild, which is as yet religious. Here is a church, the 
Church of St. George, Botolph Lane ; the doors are 
open ; the bells are ringing ; the people are crowding 
in. Let us enter. It is a Mystery that they are going 
to play — nothing less than the Raising of Lazarus ac- 
cording to Holy Scripture. The church within is dark 
and gloomy, but there is light enough to see the plat- 
form, or low stage, under the nave covered with red 
cloth, which has been erected for the Play. The 
actors are young priests and choristers. All round 
the stage stand the people, the men in leather jerkins 
— they do not remove their caps — the women in wool- 
len frocks, the children with eyes wide open. When 
the Play begins they all weep without restraint at the 
moving passages. In the first scene Lazarus lies on 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



95 




CRYPT IN BOW CHURCH, FROM THE NORTH SIDE, NEAR THE EAST END 
OF THE NAVE 



his bed, at the point of death — weak, faint, speechless. 
He is attended by his friends — four Jews, attired in 
realistic fashion, no mistake about their nationality — 
infidels, mecreants — and by his sisters twain, marvel- 
lously like two nuns of the period. They send a mes- 
senger to the new Great Physician and Worker of 
Miracles, who is reported to be preaching and healing 
not far off. But He delays; Lazarus dies. His sister 
goes to reproach the Physician with the delay, wailing 
and lamenting her brother's death. At length He 
comes. Lazarus is already buried. The tomb is on 
the stage, with the dead man inside. Jesus calls. Oh, 



96 LONDON 

miracle ! we saw him die ; we saw him buried. Lo ! 
he rises and comes forth from the grave. To the 
people it is as if the Lord Jesus himself stood before 
them; they have seen Him with their own eyes; 
henceforth the name of the Lord recalls a familiar 
form ; experienced persons of dull imagination say 
that this is not Jesus at all, but Stephen the Deacon — 
he with the heavenly voice and the golden locks. No, 
no ; it is not Stephen they have seen, but Another. 
So, also, some will have it that the man who died and 
was buried, and rose again, and stood before them all 
in white cerements, was John of Hoggesdon, Chantry 
Priest. Not so ; it was Lazarus — none other. Lazarus, 
now no doubt a blessed saint, with his two sisters, 
Martha and Mary. Why ! it must have been Lazarus, 
because, after the miracle, he called upon the people 
to mark the wondrous works of the Lord, and sang 
the Magnificat so that the psalm echoed in the roof and 
rolled above the pillars. He sang that psalm out of 
pure gratitude ; you could see the tears rolling down 
his cheeks; and in worship and adoration, Lazarus him- 
self, he who had been dead and had come to life again. 
The Mystery is over ; the people have all gone 
away ; the stage is removed, and the church is empty 
again. Two priests are left, and their talk is like a 
jarring note after sweet music. " Brother," says one, 
" were it not for such shows as these, if we did not 
present to the people the things which belong to re- 
ligion in such a way that the dullest can understand, 
the Church would be in a parlous way. All folk cry 
out upon the profligacy of the monks, and their 
luxury, and the greed of the priests. What sayeth 
Walter Map, that good archdeacon? 



SAXON AND NORMAN 97 

'" Omnis a clericis fluit enormitas, 
Cum Deo debeant mentes sollicitas, 
Tractant negotia mercesque vetitas 
Et rerum turpium vices indebitas.' " 

" I hear," said the other, " that two Cistercians have 
lately become apostate to the Jews." 

" Rather," replied the first, " they should have be- 
come Christians, so to separate themselves the better 
from that accursed body." 

These are the distant rumblings of the gathering 
storm. But the Church will become much richer, much 
more powerful, the monks will become much more 




INTERIOR OF PORCH OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. ALPHEGE, 
LONDON WALL, FORMERLY THE CHAPEL OF THE PRIORY OP ST. ELSYNGE SPITAL 

7 



98 LONDON 

profligate, the priests will become far more greedy 
before things grow to be intolerable. 

It is an evening in May. What means this pro- 
cession ? Here comes a sturdy rogue marching along 
valiantly, blowing pipe and beating tabor. After him, 
a rabble rout of lads and young men, wearing flowers 
in their caps, and bearing branches and singing lust- 
ily. This is what they sing, not quite in these words, 
but very nearly : 

Sumer is icumen in, 
Lhude sing cuccu ! 
Groweth sed and bloweth med, 
And springth the wde nu. 
Sing cuccu. 

Awe bleteth after lamb, 

Llouth after calve cu, 
Bulluc sterteth, buck verteth, 

Murie sing cuccu ! 

Cuccu, cuccu, well singeth thu cuccu, 

Ne swik thu navu nu ; 
Sing cuccu, cuccu, nu sing cuccu, 

Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu ! 

The workman jumps up and shouts as they go 
past ; the priest and the friar laugh and shout ; the 
girls, gathering together as is the maidens' way, laugh 
and clap their hands. The young men sing as they 
go and dance as they sing. Spring has come back 
again — sing cuckoo ; the days of light and warmth — 
sing cuckoo; the time of feasting and of love — sing 
cuckoo. The proud abbot, with his following, draws 
rein to let them pass, and laughs to see them ; he is, 
you see, a man first and a monk afterwards. In the 
gateway of his great house stands the Norman earl 



SAXON AND NORMAN 99 

with his livery. He waits to let the London youth 
go by. The earl scorns the English youth no longer; 
he knows their lustihood. He can even understand 
their speech. He sends out largesse to the lads to 
be spent in the good wines of Gascony and of Spain ; 
he joins in the singing ; he waves his hand, a brother- 
ly hand, as the floral greenery passes along ; he sings 
with them at the top of his voice : 

Sing cuccu — cuccu — nu sing cuccu ; 
Sing cuccu ; sing cuccu, nu. 

Presently the evening falls. It is light till past eight: 
the days are long. At nightfall, in summer, the peo- 
ple go to bed. In the great houses they assemble in 
the hall ; in winter they would listen to music and 
the telling of stories, even the legends of King Ar- 
thur. Walter Map ' will collect them and arrange them, 
and the French romances, such as " Amis et Amils," 
"Aucassin et Nicolette," though these have not yet 
been written down. In summer they have music be- 
fore they go to bed. We are in a city that has always 
been fond of music. The noise of crowd and pipe, 
tabor and cithern, is now silent in the streets. Rich 
men kept their own musicians. What said Bishop Gros- 

setete? 

Next hys chamber, besyde hys study, 
Hys harper's chamber was fast ther by, 
Many tymes, by nightes and dayes, 
He hade solace of notes and layes. 
One asked him the resun why 
He hadde delyte in minstrelsy? 
He answered hym on thys manere 
Why he helde the harpe so dere : 

1 Morley's English Writers, vol. i., p. 760. 



IOO LONDON 

The virtu of the harpe thurh skill and right 
Wyll destrye the fendys myght, 
And to the cros by gode skeyl 
Ys the harpe lykened weyl. 

He who looks and listens for the voice of the peo- 
ple in these ancient times hears no more than a con- 
fused murmur : one sees a swarm working like ants ; 
a bell rings: they knock off work; another bell : they 
run together; they shout; they wave their hats; the 
listener, however, hears no words. It is difficult in any 
age — even in the present day — to learn or understand 
what the bas penple think and what they desire. They 
want few things indeed in every generation ; only, as I 
said above, the three elements of freedom, health, and 
just pay. Give them these three and they will grum- 
ble no longer. When a poet puts one of them on his 
stage and makes him act and makes him speak, we 
learn the multitude from the type. Later on, after 
Chaucer and Piers Ploughman have spoken, we know 
the people better; as yet we guess at them, we do 
not even know them in part. Observe, however, one 
thing about London — a thing of great significance. 
When there is a Jacquerie, when the people, who 
have hitherto been as silent as the patient ox, rise 
with a wild roar of rage, it is not in Lo?idon. Here 
men have learned — however imperfectly — the lesson 
that only by combination of all for the general wel- 
fare is the common weal advanced. I think, also, 
that London men, even those on the lowest levels, 
have always known very well that their humility of 
place is due to their own lack of purpose and self- 
restraint. The air of London has always been charged 
with the traditions and histories of those who have 




THE ARMS AND SEALS OF THE PRIOR AND CONVENT OF ST. SAVIOUR AT BERMONDSEV 



SAXON AND NORMAN 



IO3 



raised themselves ; there never has been a city more 
generous to her children, more ready to hold out a 
helping hand ; this we shall see illustrated later on ; at 
present all is beginning. The elementary three con- 
ditions are felt, but not yet put into words. 

We are at present in the boyhood of a city which 
after a thousand years is still in its strong and vigor- 
ous manhood, showing no sign, not the least sign, of 
senility or decay. Rather does it appear like a city 
in its first spring of eager youth. But the real work 
for Saxon and Norman London lies before. It is 
to come. It is a work which is to be the making of 
Great Britain and of America, Australia, and the Isles. 
It is the work of building up, defending, and consoli- 
dating the liberties of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

They were not wretched at all, these early London 
citizens; but, on the contrary, joyous and happy and 
hopeful. And not only for the reasons already stated, 
but for the great fact — the greatest fact of the time 
— of their blind and unreasoning faith. It is impos- 
sible to exaggerate the importance of unreasoning 
faith as a factor in human happiness. The life of the 
meanest man was full of dignity and of splendor, be- 
cause of the great inheritance assured to him by the 
Church. We must never leave out the Church in 
speaking of the past. We must never forget that all 
people, save here and there a doubting Rufus or a ques- 
tioning Prince of Anjou, believed without the shadow 
of any doubt. Knowledge brought the power of ques- 
tioning. As yet there was no knowledge. There- 
fore every man's life, however miserable, was, to his 
happy ignorance, the certain ante- room of heaven. 
We are fond of dwelling on the mediaeval hell, the 



104 LONDON 

stupidity and the brutality of its endless torture, and 
the selfishness of buying salvation by masses. Hell, 
my friends, was always meant for the other man. He 
who saw the devils painted on the church-wall, rend- 
ing, tearing, frying, cutting, burning the poor souls 
in hell, knew these souls for those of his enemies. 
Like Dante, he saw among them all his public and 
his private foes. He looked upward for his hope. 
There he beheld loving angels bearing aloft in their 
soft arms the soul redeemed to the abode of perfect 
bliss. In that soul he recognized himself; he saw the 
portraiture, exact and lifelike, of his own features. 

When the ambassadors of the Caliph Haroun al 
Raschid brought gifts to the great King Karl, the 
finest thing he had to show them was the splendid 
service of the Church. 

This story is told literally. It might be told as an 
allegory. In London Saxon and Norman, as also for 
many centuries to follow, the finest thing they had to 
show was the Church, with its music that moved the 
heart to tears ; its promises, which steeled the soul to 
endurance ; its glories, which carried the beholder far 
away from the wattle and clay of his hut and his 
grimy leathern doublet ; its frown, which stood be- 
tween him and the tyrannous Over Lord, and saved 
his home from starvation and his womankind from 
dishonor. Fortunate was it for the people that they 
had the Church to show to those ambassadors of the 
Moslem. 



Ill 

PLANT A GENET 
I. ECCLESIASTICAL 

PRINCE PANTAGRUEL and his companions, 
pursuing their incomparable voyage, sailed three 
days and three nights without discovering anything, 
and on the fourth day made land. The Pilot told 
them that it was the Ringing Island ; and, indeed, they 
heard afar off a kind of a confused and oft-repeated 
noise, that seemed at a distance not unlike the sound 
of great, middle-sized, and little bells rung all at once. 
Commentators have been much exercised as to the 
city which the great Master of Allegory had in view 
when he described I 'He Souuante. Foolish commen- 
tators ! As if even a small master of allegory, much 
less the great and illustrious Alcofribas Nasier, could, 
or would, mean any one town in particular! One 
might as well search for the man whose portrait he 
painted and called Panurge. He described all towns. 
For, in truth, every mediaeval city was an He Sonnante, 
and the greater, the richer, the more populous, the 
more powerful was the city, the louder and the more 
frequent were the jinglings and the janglings, the so- 
norous clang and the melodious peal, the chimings 



106 LONDON 

and the strikings, the music and the jarring of the 
thousand Bells. They rang all day long ; they rang 
from the great Cathedral and from the little Parish 
Church ; from the stately monastery, the nunnery, the 
College of Priests, the Spital, the Chantry, the Chapel, 
and the Hermitage. They rang for Festivals, for Fasts, 
for Pageants, for Processions, for Births, Marriages, 
and Funerals ; for the election of city officers, for 
Coronations, for Victories, and for daily service ; they 
rang to mark the day and the hour; they rang in the 
baby ; they rang out the passing soul ; they rang for 
the bride; they rang in memory of the dead; they 
rang for work to begin and for work to cease ; they 
rang to exhort, to admonish, to console. 

With their ringing the City was never quiet. Four 
miles out of London, the sound of the Bells rang in 
the ears of the downcast 'prentice boy who sat upon 
the green slopes of Highgate: the chimes of Bow 
struck merrily upon his ear above the tinkling of the 
sheep bell, the carol of the lark, and the song of the 
thrush. To him they brought a promise and a hope. 
What they brought to the busy folk in the streets I 
know not ; but since they were a folk of robust nerves, 
the musical, rolling, melodious, clashing, joyous ring- 
ing of bells certainly brought for the most part a 
sense of elation, hope, and companionship. So, in 
this our later day, the multitudinous tripper or the 
Hallelujah lad is not happy unless he can make, as he 
goes, music — loud music — in the train and on the 
sands. So, again, those who march in procession do 
not feel complete without a braying band with drums 
great and small, banging and beating and roaring an 
accompaniment to the mottoes on their banners, and 



FLANTAGENET 



IO7 



uplifting the souls of the champions who are about to 
harangue the multitude. 

The He. Sonnante of Rabelais may have been Paris 
— of course it was Paris ; it may have been Avignon 
— there is not the least doubt that it was Avignon ; it 
may also have been London — there can be no manner 
of question on that point. Rabelais never saw Lon- 
don ; but so loud was the jingle-jangle of the City 
bells that they smote upon his ear while he was be- 
ginning that unfinished book of his and inspired the 
first chapters. London, without a 
doubt, London, and no other, is the 
true He Sonnante. 

Of Plantagenet London there is 
much to be said and written. Place 
a V Eglise ! It was a time when 
the Church covered all. Faith un- 
questioning seemed to have pro- 
duced its full effect. The promised 
Kingdom, according to eyes eccle- 
siastic, was already among us. What 
could be better for the world than 
that it should be ruled absolutely 
by the Vicar of Christ ? Yet the 
full effect of this rule proved in the event not quite 
what might have been expected. 

In London, says an observant Frenchman, there is 
no street without a church and a tree. He speaks of 
modern London. Of London in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, there was no street without its monastery, its 
convent garden, its College of Priests, its Canons regu- 
lar, its Friars, its Pardoners, its sextons, and its serving 
brothers, and this without counting its hundred and 




108 LONDON 

twenty parish churches, each with its priests, its chan- 
tries, its fraternities, and its church-yard. The Church 
was everywhere ; it played not only an important part 
in the daily life, but the most important part. Not 
even the most rigid Puritan demanded of the world so 
much of its daily life and so great a share of its reve- 
nues as the Church of the Middle Ages. There were 
already whispered and murmured questions, but the 
day of revolt was still two hundred long years ahead. 
Meantime the Church reigned and ruled, and no man 
yet dared disobey. 

Let us consider, therefore, as the most conspicuous 
feature of Plantagenet London, her great religious 
Houses. We have seen what they were in Norman 
London. Already there were there in existence the 
Cathedral of St. Paul's, with its canons and priests, its 
army of singing men, clerks, boys, and servants — itself 
a vast monastic House ; the Priory of St. Bartholo- 
mew : the House of St. Mary Overies ; the Hospital 
of St.Katherine ; the Priory of the Holy Trinity. After 
three hundred years, when we look again upon the map 
of London, and mark in color the sites of Monastery, 
Nunnery, Church, College, and Church-yard, it seems 
as if a good fourth part of the City area was swallowed 
up in ecclesiastical Houses. Not so much was actually 
covered by buildings of the Church, but at least a 
fourth of the City, counting the gardens and the 
courts and chapels, belonged to the Church and the 
religious Houses. Without such a map it is impossible 
to estimate the enormous wealth of the mediaeval 
Church, its power, and its authority. It is impossible 
to understand without such a map how enormous was 
that Revolution which could shake off and shatter 



PLANTAGENET IO9 

into fragments a power so tremendous. Because, as 
was London, so was every other city. If London had 
a hundred and twenty churches, Norwich had sixty ; 
York had forty-five. If the country all round London 
was parcelled out among the religious Houses, so all 
over the land, manors here, and estates there, broad 
acres everywhere belonged to the monks. But though 
their property was enormous, their power was far be- 
yond that conferred by any amount of property, for 
they held the keys of heaven and kept open the gates 
of hell. 

As for the vast numbers actually maintained by the 
Church, the single example of St. Paul's Cathedral — 
of course, the largest foundation in the City — will fur- 
nish an illustration. In the year 1450 the Society, a 
Cathedral body, included the following: the Bishop, 
the Dean, the four Archdeacons, the Treasurer, the Pre- 
centor, the Chancellor, thirty greater Canons, twelve 
lesser Canons, about fifty Chaplains or chantry priests, 
and thirty Vicars. Of inferior rank to these were the 
Sacrist and three Vergers, the Succentor, the Master of 
the Singing-school, the Master of the Grammar-school, 
the Almoner and his four Vergers, the Servitors, the 
Surveyor, the twelve Scribes, the Book Transcriber, the 
Book- binder, the Chamberlain, the Rent-collector, the 
Baker, the Brewer, the singing-men and choir-boys, of 
whom priests were made, the Bedesmen, and the poor 
folk. In addition to these must be added the serv- 
ants of all these officers — the brewer, who brewed in 
the year 1286, 67,814 gallons, must have employed a 
good many ; the baker, who ovened every year 40,000 
loaves, or every day more than a hundred, large and 
small ; the sextons, grave-diggers, gardeners, bell-ring- 



I 10 



LONDON 



ers, makers and menders of the ecclesiastical robes, 
cleaners and sweepers, carpenters, masons, painters, 
carvers and gilders — one can very well understand that 
the Church of St. Paul's alone found a livelihood for 
thousands. 




RUINS (1790) OF THE NUNNERY OF ST. HELEN, BISHOPSGATE STREET 



The same equipment was necessary in every other 
religious foundation. Not a monastery but had its 
great and lesser officers and their servants. In every 
one there were the bell-ringers, the singing-men and 
boys, the vergers, the gardeners, the brewers, bakers, 
cooks, messengers, scribes, rent-collectors, and all com- 
plete as was St. Paul's, though on a smaller scale. It 
does not seem too much to estimate the ecclesiastical 
establishments as including a fourth part of the whole 
population of the City. 



PLANTAGENET I 1 1 

The London monasteries lay for the most part 
either just within or just without the City Wall. The 
reason is obvious. They were founded when the City 
was already populous, and were therefore built upon 
the places where houses were less numerous and 
ground was of less value. 

Let us, in order to visit them all, make a circuit 
within the City Wall, beginning from the Tower on the 
East. 

The first House at which we stop is the Priory of 
Crutched Friars, that is, Crossed Friars. They wore 
a cross of red cloth upon their backs, and carried an 
iron cross in their hands. The order of the Red 
Cross was founded by one Conrad, of Bologna, in the 
year 1169. Some of the Friars found their way to 
London in the middle of the next century, and hum- 
bly begged of the pious folk a house to live in. Of 
course they got it, and many houses afterwards, with a 
good following of the citizens. This monastery stood 
behind Seething Lane, opposite St. Olave's Church. 
The site afterwards became that of the Navy House, 
and is still marked by the old stone pillars of the 
entrance and the open court within. This court is 
now a receiving house for. some railway. Beyond 
this, on the other side of Aldgate, stood a far more 
important monastery, that of the Holy Trinity. The 
site of the place is marked — for there is not a vestige 
left of the ancient buildings — by a mean little square 
now called St. James's Square ; a place of resort for 
the poorer Jews. This noble House was founded by 
Matilda, wife of Henry I., in 1109, for regular Canons 
of the Order of St. Augustine. The Priory, enriched 
by many later benefactors, became the wealthiest and 



112 LONDON 

most splendid in the City. Its Prior, by virtue of his 
office, and because the old Knighten Guild had given 
their property to the Priory, was Alderman of Port- 
soken ward ; the monastery was exempted from eccle- 
siastical jurisdiction other than the Pope's; its church 
was great and magnificent, full of stately monuments, 
carved marbles, and rich shrines ; the House was hos- 
pitable and nobly charitable to the poor. 

The beautiful old church of St. Helen, filled with 
monuments curious and quaint, was formerly the 
Church of the Priory of St. Helen. This nunnery was 
founded by William Basing, dean of St. Paul's, in the 
reign of Richard I. The church, as it now stands, 
consists of the old Parish Church and the Nun's 
Chapel, formerly separated by a partition wall. The 
Leathersellers' Company acquired some of their ground 
after the Dissolution, and the old Hall of the Nunnery, 
afterwards the Leathersellers' Hall, was standing until 
the year 1799. 

On the north of Broad Street stood the splendid 
House of Austin Friars; that is, the Friars Eremites 
of the Order of St. Augustine. The House was found- 
ed by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, in the 
year 1253. It rapidly became one of the wealthiest 
Houses in the City ; its church, very splendid, was filled 
with monuments. Part of it stands to this day. It is 
now used by the Dutch residents in London. The 
quiet courts and the square at the back of the church 
retain something of the former monastic arrangement 
and of the old tranquillity. The square is certainly 
one of the courts of the monastery, but I know not 
whether the Refectory or the Library or the Abbot's 
House stood here. 



PLANTAGEXET 



113 



The next great House following the wall westward 
was that of St. Martin's le Grand, of which I have al- 
ready spoken. It was a House of Augustine Canons. 
It formed a Precinct with its own Liberty. William of 
YVykeham was its most famous Dean. In the sanctu- 
ary Miles Forrest, one of the murderers of the two 
Princes in the Tower, died — "rotted away piecemeal." 
The Liberty survived long after the Dissolution. 

Adjoining St. Martin's was the great Foundation of 
the Grey Friars. 

They were Franciscans. Who does not know the 




JeSsS 



■ 




' 



ST. HELEN'S, BISHOPSGATE 



114 LONDON 

story of St. Francis and the foundation of his great 
order? They were the Preachers of the poor. The 
first Franciscans, like the Buddhist priests, lived upon 
alms ; they had no money, no endowments, no books, 
no learning, no great houses. Those who came to 
England — it was in the year 1224 — nine in number, of 
whom only one was a priest, were penniless. They 
first halted in Canterbury, where they were permitted 
to sleep at night in a room used by day as a school. 
Four of them presently moved on to London, where 
they hired a piece of ground on Cornhill, and built upon 
it rude cells of wattle and clay with their own hands. 
Already the Dominicans, their rivals — Preachers of 
the learned and the rich — had obtained a settlement 
in Oxford. The Franciscans stayed a very short time 
on Cornhill. In the year 1225 one John Ewin bought 
and presented to them a piece of ground north of 
Newgate Street, whither they removed. Their au- 
sterity, their poverty, their earnestness, their elo- 
quence drew all hearts towards them. And, as al- 
ways happens, their very popularity proved their ruin. 
Kings and queens, great lords and ladies, strove and 
vied with each other to show their love and admiration 
for the men who had given up all that the world can 
offer for the sake of Christ and for pity of their broth- 
ers and sisters. They showed this love in the manner 
common with the world. They forced upon the friars 
a portion of their wealth ; they made them receive 
and enjoy the very things they had renounced. It is 
a wonderful record. First, the citizens began. One 
Lord Mayor built a new choir for their church, with a 
splendor worthy of the order and of the City ; another 
built the nave to equal the choir ; a third built the 



PLANTAGENET 115 

dormitories — no more wattle and daub for the dear 
friars; other citizens built Chapter House, Vestry 
House, Infirmary, and Refectory. Their Library was 
given by Dick Whittington, thrice Mayor of London. 
Then came the turn of the great people. Queen Mar- 
garet thought the choir of the church should be still 
more splendid, and added to it or rebuilt it. Queen 
Isabel and Queen Philippa thought that the nave 
should be more splendid, and with the help of the Earl 
and Countess of Richmond, the Earl of Gloucester and 
his sisters, Lord Lisle and others, built a new nave, 
300 feet long, 89 feet broad, and 64 feet high. Here 
were buried, as in ground far more sacred than that 
of St. Paul's or any acre of ordinary consecration, 
Margaret, wife of Edward I.; Isabel, wife of Edward 
II.; Joan of the Tower, Queen of Scots, daughter of 
Edward II.; Isabel, daughter of Edward III.; Beatrice, 
daughter of Henry III.; and an extraordinary number 
of persons great and honorable in their day. What 
became of their monuments and of the church itself 
belongs to Tudor London. 

All those who visit London are recommended by 
the guide-books to see the famous Blue-coat School. 
The main entrance is at the end of a narrow lane lead- 
ing north from Newgate Street. On the right hand 
of the lane stands a great ugly pile built by Wren 
twenty years after the Great Fire. This is Christ 
Church, and it stands on part of the site of the old 
church of the Grey Friars. At the Dissolution, Henry 
VIII. made their church into a parish church, assign- 
ing to it the two parishes of St. Nicolas Shambles 
and St. Ewin, together with the ground occupied by 
the Monastery. The church within is as ugly as it is 



u6 



LONDON 




SOUTH-WEST VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF ST. HELEN, 
BISHOPSGATE STREET 



without. One shudders to think of the change from 
the great and splendid monastic church. On the 
other side of the lane is an open space, a church-yard 



PLANTAGENET 117 

now disused. The old church covered both this open 
space and the area of the modern church. Behind it 
stood the cloisters, the burial-ground, and the mo- 
nastic buildings of the House, covering a great extent 
of ground. Those who go through the gate find them- 
selves in a large quadrangle asphalted. This is now 
part of the boys' play-ground; their feet run every day 
over the old tombs and graves of the Grey Friars' bur- 
ial-ground ; the soil, though not accounted so sacred 
as that within the church itself, was considered greatly 
superior to that of any common church-yard. Most of 
the dead were buried in the habit of the Grey Friars, 
as if to cheat Peter into a belief of their sanctity. On 
the south of the quadrangle two or three arches may 
be observed. These are the only fragments remaining 
of the cloisters. The view of Christ's Hospital after 
the Great Fire of 1666 shows the old courts of the 
Abbey. The church formerly extended over the 
whole front of the picture ; the buildings now seen are 
wholly modern ; the cloistered square was the church- 
yard ; the Hall stood across the north side of the first 
court ; beyond were the courts appropriated to the 
service of the monks ; the cells, libraries, etc., were 
round the great court and the small courts on the 
right. The Franciscan House is gone ; the Friars are 
gone. Let us not think, however, that their work is 
gone. On the contrary, all that was good in it re- 
mains. That is the quality and the test of good work. 
It is imperishable. If you ask what is this work 
and where it may be found, look about you. In the 
prosperity of the City ; in the energy, the industry, 
the courage, the soberness of its people ; in whatever 

virtues they possess, the Franciscans have their share; 
8* 



Il8 LONDON 

the Grey Friars, who went straight at the people — 
the rough, common, ignorant people — and saved them 
from the destruction of those virtues which built up 
this realm of Britain. The old ideas change ; what is 
to-day faith becomes to-morrow superstition ; but the 
new order is built upon the old. It was a part of the 
training necessary for the English people that they 
should pass under the teaching of the Friars. 

In the south-western corner of the City Wall were 
lodged the Dominicans or Black Friars. 

These, the Preaching Friars, came to England two 
years before their rivals, the Franciscans. Their first 
settlement was in the country lane which now we call 
Chancery Lane. After a residence there of fifty years 
they removed to this corner of the town, which was, 
so to speak, made for them — that is, the City Wall 
which formerly ran straight from Ludgate to the river 
was pulled down and rebuilt farther west along the 
bank of the Fleet. Within the piece of ground thus 
added the Black Friars settled down, and because the 
ground had not formerly belonged to the City, it now 
became a Precinct of its own, enclosed by its own 
wall, with its four gates not amenable to the City and 
pretending to a right of Sanctuary. Edward I. and 
his Queen Eleanor were great benefactors to the Do- 
minicans. Of the church and the stately buildings of 
the proud order not a trace remains. In the Guild- 
hall Museum may be seen a drawing of some ruined 
vaults belonging to the Abbey, which were discovered 
on enlarging the premises of the Times some years 
ago. There is nothing above-ground. The Domini- 
cans, however, never succeeded in winning the affec- 
tions of the people to the same extent as the Fran- 



PLANTAGENET 



II 9 



ciscans. They were learned ; they insisted strongly 
on doctrine ; but they were harder of heart than the 
Grey Friars. It was the Dominicans who encouraged 
the planting of the Inquisition. 

All these Houses were within the walls. Without 
were others, as rich and as splendid. South of Fleet 
Street, between Bridewell Palace and the Temple, was 




CHURCH OF ST. AUGUSTINE (ST. AUSTIN) 



the House of the Carmelites, called the White Friars. 
These also were an Order of Mendicants. The Fratres 
Beatce Maries de Monte Carmclo sprang from the her- 
mits who settled in numbers on the slopes of Mount 
Carmel. They were formed into an order by Almeric, 
Bishop of Antioch, and were first introduced into 
Europe about the year 12 16, by Albert, Patriarch of 
Jerusalem. They got their house in London from 



120 LONDON 

Edward I. ; but their chief benefactor was Hugh Cour- 
tenay, Earl of Devonshire. They, too, had their Sanct- 
uary, afterwards called Alsatia. This privilege was 
not abolished till the year 1697. 

Beyond the Carmelites were the Templars, but the 
suppression of the Order removed them from the 
scene in the year 13 10. 

The Priories of St. Bartholomew and of St. John 
belong to Norman London. On the north of Bar- 
tholomew's, however, stood the house of the Carthu- 
sians. The Carthusian Order was a branch of the 
Benedictine Rule, to which the Cluniacs and Cister- 
cians also belonged. 

The house of the Salutation of the Mother of God 
— which was its full title — was founded in the year 
1 37 1 by Sir Walter Manny. Those who know their 
Froissart know that gallant Knight well and can testify 
to his achievements ; how he entreated King Edward 
for the citizens of Calais ; how he rescued the Count- 
ess of Montfort besieged in the castle of Hennivere, 
and, for his reward, was kissed— he and his companions 
— not once, but two or three times, by that brave 
lady ; these and many other things can be told of this 
noble Knight. Not the least of his feats was the 
foundation of this House of Religion. 

When we speak of the Plague of London we gen- 
erally mean that of 1664-65. But this was only the 
last, and perhaps not the worst, of the many plagues 
which had visited the City. Thirteen great pestilences 
fell upon the City between the years 1094 and 1625 — 
in the last year 35,000 died. That is to say, one plague 
happened about every forty years, so that there never 
was a time when a recent plague was not in the minds 



PLANTAGENET 121 

of men. Always they remembered the last visitation, 
the suddenness and swiftness of destruction, the deso- 
lation of houses, the striking down of young and old, 
the loss of the tender children, the sweet maidens, 
the gallant youth. Life is brief and uncertain at 
the best; but when the plague is added to the dis- 
eases which men expect, its uncertainty is forced 
upon the minds of the people of every condition with 
a persistence and a conviction unknown in quiet times 
when each man hopes to live out his three score years 
and ten. 

In the year 1347 there happened a dreadful plague. 
It began in Dorsetshire and spread over the whole of 
the south country, reaching London last. After a 
while the church-yards were not large enough to hold 
the dead, and they were forced to enclose ground out- 
side the walls. The Bishop of London, therefore, 
bought a piece of ground north of Bartholomew's, 
called No Man's Ground, which he enclosed and con- 
secrated, building thereon a " fair chapel." This place 
was called the Pardon Church-yard. It stood, as those 
who know London will be interested to know, be- 
yond the north wall of the present Charter House. 

Two years later, the plague still continuing, Sir 
Walter Manny bought a plot of thirteen acres close to 
this church-yard, and built a chapel upon it — it stood 
somewhere in the middle of the present Charterhouse 
Square — and gave it for an additional church -yard. 
More than fifty thousand persons were buried here in 
one year, according to Stow; but the number is im- 
possible, unless the whole of London died in that year. 
There used to be a stone cross standing in the church- 
yard with the following inscription : 



122 



LONDON 



Anno Domini 1349, regnante magna pestilentia, consecra- 
tum fuit hoc coemiterium in quo et infra septa presentis mo- 
nasterii sepulta fuerunt mortuorum corpora plus quam quin- 
quaginta millia praeter alia multa abhinc usque ad presens : 
quorum animabus propitietur Deus. Amen. 



The old Pardon 
Church-yard afterwards 
became the 'burial-place 
of suicides and executed 
criminals. To this sad 
place the bodies of such 
were carried in a cart 
belonging to St. John's 
Hospital ; the vehicle 
was hung over with black, 
but with a St. John's 
Cross in front, and with- 
in it hung a bell which 
rang with the jolting and 
the shaking of the cart 
— a mournful sight to see 
and a doleful sound to 
hear. 

Twenty -two years 
later, when there had 
been upward of a hun- 
dred thousand persons 
buried in the new church- 
yard, Sir Walter Manny, 
now grown old and near 
his end, bought ten acres 
more, which he gave to 
the ground, and estab- 




CHIRCH OF AUSTIN FRIARS 



PLANTAGENET 1 23 

lished here a House of Carthusians, called the Saluta- 
tion. At first he thought of making a college for a 
warden, a dean, and twelve secular priests. On the 
advice, however, of Simon Sudbury, Bishop of Lon- 
don, he abandoned that project and established a 
House of Carthusians. 

The Cistercian Order was founded by one Stephen 
Harding, originally a monk of Sherborne. He is said 
by William of Malmesbury to have left his convent 
and to have gone into France, where he practised "the 
Liberal arts " until he fell into repentance, and was re- 
ceived into the monastery of Molesmes, in Burgundy. 
Here he found a little company of the brethren who 
were not content with the Rule of the House, but de- 
sired instruction and a rule more in accordance with 
their Founder's intention. They seceded, therefore, 
and established themselves at Citeaux, then entirely 
covered with woods. This is their manner of life set 
forth by the Chronicler: 

Certainly many of their regulations seem severe, and more 
particularly these : they wear nothing made with furs or linen, 
nor even that finely spun linen garment which we call Stami- 
nium ;' neither breeches, unless when sent on a journey, which 
at their return they wash and restore. -They have two tunics 
with cowls, but no additional garment in winter, though, if 
they think fit, in summer they may lighten their garb. They 
sleep clad and girded, and never after matins return to their 
beds ; but they so order the time of matins that it shall be light 
ere the lauds 2 begin ; so intent are they on their rule, that they 
think no jot or tittle of it should be disregarded. Directly after 
these hymns they sing the prime, after which they go out to 
work for stated hours. They complete, whatever labor or serv- 

1 A kind of woollen shirt. 

3 The concluding psalms of the matin service. 



124 LONDON 

ice they have to perform by day without any other light. No 
one is ever absent from the daily services, or from complines, 
except the sick. The cellarer and hospitaller, after complines, 
wait upon the guests, yet observing the strictest silence. The 
abbat allows himself no indulgence beyond the others — every- 
where present — everywhere attending to his flock ; except that 
he does not eat with the rest, because his table is with the 
strangers and the poor. Nevertheless, be he where he may, 
he is equally sparing of food and speech ; for never more than 
two dishes are served either to him or to his company ; lard 
and meat never but to the sick. From the Ides of September 
till Easter, through regard for whatever festival, they do not 
take more than one meal a day, except on Sunday. They nev- 
er leave the cloister but for purpose of labor, nor do they 
ever speak, either there or elsewhere, save only to the abbat 
or prior. They pay unwearied attention to the canonical 1 
services, making no addition to them except for the defunct. 
They use in their divine service the Ambrosian chants' and 
hymns, as far as they were able to learn them at Milan. While 
they bestow care on the stranger and the sick, they inflict in- 
tolerable mortifications on their own bodies, for the health of 
their souls. 

When we consider this death in life, this suppres- 
sion of everything which makes life, this annihilation 
of aims, ambitions, and natural affections, this de- 
struction of love, emotion, and passion, this mere 
monotony of breathing, this wearisome futility and 
vanity, this endless iteration of Litanies ; when we re- 
member that hundreds of thousands in every Christian 
country, men and women, voluntarily entered upon 
this life, knowing beforehand what it was, and that 

1 The Horse, or canonical services, were matins, primes, tierce, sexts, 
nones, vespers, and complines. 

2 The Ambrosian ritual prevailed pretty generally till the time of 
Charlemagne, who adopted the Gregorian. 



PLANTAGENET 1 25 

they patiently endured it, we can in some measure 
realize the intensity and the reality of the torments 
which they believed to be provided for the vast ma- 
jority of mankind. There grew up, in the course of 
years, rich monks and luxurious monks ; but in the 
early days of each order there was the austerity of the 
Rule. And though here and there we find a brother 
who rises to a spiritual level far above the letter of 
his Order, the religion of the ordinary brother was 
little more than the fear of Hell, with a sense of grati- 
tude to the Saints for snatching him out of the flames. 
Most of the brethren, again, of the new and more 
austere Orders, until they became rich, were simple and 
illiterate. They wanted a rule of life which should 
give them no chance of committing sin ; like women, 
they desired to be ruled in everything, even the most 
trivial. At dinner, for instance, they were enjoined to 
drink with both hands, and to incline the head when 
served ; in church they were not to clinch their hands 
or to stretch out their legs ; the whole day was mapped 
out for them as it is for boys at school. From primes 
(the daybreak service) till tierce, spiritual exercises ; 
from tierce till sext, and from nones till vespers, man- 
ual labors ; once every day private prayer at the altar; 
silence in the cell ; to ask for what was wanted after 
nones ; no conversation in the chapter, the cloisters, 
or the church ; from November till Easter conversa- 
tion on the customs of the Order ; afterwards on the 
Gospels, and so on. The effect on the common nat- 
ure would be to produce a breathing machine, incapa- 
ble of thought, of action, of judgment, with no affec- 
tions, emotions, or passions. The holy brotherhood 
becomes a troop of slaves engaged upon a round of 



126 



LONDON 



trivial duties, kept at a low stage of vitality by scanty 
food and short sleep. They cease after a while to de- 
sire any change ; they go on in meekness and submis- 
sion to the end, their piety measured by their regular- 
ity. Now and then among them is found one who 
frets under the yoke. Either he wants new austerities, 



S^ <., 







IIP % ■ : 

mom 

" 'few" 



Christ's hospital, from the cloisters 



like Stephen Harding, or he rises in mad revolt, and 
before he can be suppressed commits such dreadful 
sins of rebellion and blasphemy as leave little doubt 
that after all his pains and privations his chances in 
the next world are no better than those of the foul- 
mouthed ruffler outside, whose life has been one long 



PLAXTAGENET 1 27 

sin, whose death will be caused by a knife in a drunk- 
en fray, whose body will be carried in the black cart 
with the bell to Pardon Church-yard, and whose soul, 
most certainly, will be borne to its own place by the 
hands of the Devil to whom it belongs. 

There must have been in every convent such times 
of madness and revolt, even though the vital powers 
were kept low with poor and scanty food. It is not 
every man who can be thus changed into a slave and 
a praying- machine. The noblest souls must break 
out from time to time ; only the ignoble sink con- 
tentedly day by day into lethargic, passive, mechanical 
discharge of the rules ; their mouths mechanically 
mumble the litanies; the sacredness falls out of the 
most holy acts and words by reason of their familiar- 
ity ; they drop into second childhood in the vigor and 
strength of manhood. If the walls of the convent 
could speak, what tales would they tell of madness 
and despair and vain rage and drivelling idiocy ! One 
thing, however, came to the relief of these poor men 
in every order; it was the gradual relaxation of the 
Rule, until, by the Dissolution, the laws of the Founder 
had passed into forms and words, and the House, en- 
riched by benefactions, had become a pleasant club, 
consisting of none but gentlemen, where certain light 
duties removed the tedium of an idle life. 

For two hundred years this House of the Salutation 
continued. There remains no record of that long 
period ; no record at all. There is no history of those 
poor souls who lived their dreary lives within its walls. 
The monks obeyed the Rule and died and were forgot- 
ten. Nay, they had been forgotten since the day when 
they assumed the hood. The end of the Carthusians 



128 LONDON 

came in blood and prison and torture ; but that be- 
longs to Tudor London. 

The accompanying view (p. 1 30) of the Charter House 
after the Dissolution, and when Sutton had altered it 
for his new Foundation, is useful in showing the ar- 
rangement of the older monastic buildings. Chapel, 
cloisters, courts, bowling green, kitchen garden, and 
" wilderness" are all exactly as the monks left them, 
though most of the buildings are of later date. The 
founder, Sir Walter, lived to see only the commence- 
ment of his work. He died the year after his House 
was established, and was buried in the chapel, he and 
his wife Margaret, and many other gallant knights and 
gracious ladies, who thus acknowledged, when they 
chose to be laid among the dust and ashes of the poor 
folk who had died of the plague and those who had 
died by the gibbet, their brotherhood with the poorest 
and the humblest and the most unfortunate. 

The modern visitor to London, when he has seen 
great St. Bartholomew's, is taken up a street hard by. 
Here, amid mean houses and shops of the lower class, 
he sees standing across the road St. John's Gate, a 
place already as well known to him and as frequently 
figured as St. Paul's itself. This is the gate — and it is 
nearly all that is left — of the great Priory of St. John 
of Jerusalem. 

It was founded in the year 1 100, and therefore be- 
longs to Norman London. Its founder was Jordan 
Briset, a Baron of the Realm, and Muriel, his wife. 
They had already founded a priory for nuns close by 
Clerkenwell. A church of some kind was certainly 
built at the beginning, but the great Priory Church, 
one of the most splendid in London, was not dedi- 



PLANTAGENET I 29 

cated till the year 1185, and then by no less a person 
than by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, then in Eng- 
land in quest of aid and money for another Crusade. 

In its Foundation the brethren took the vows of 
chastity, obedience, and poverty. They were to have 
a right to nothing but bread, water, and clothes. They 
begged their food ; on Wednesdays and Fridays they 
fasted ; a breach of their first vow was punished by 
public flogging and penance ; no women were to do 
any offices at all for them ; they were to be silent, 
never to go about alone ; they were to be the servants 
of the sick and poor ; they were valiantly to defend 
the Cross. " Receive," says the ritual of admission, 
" the yoke of the Lord : it is easy and light, and thou 
shalt find rest for thy soul. We promise thee nothing 
but bread and water, a simple habit of little worth. 
We give thee, thy parents and relations, a share in the 
good works performed by our Order and by our breth- 
ren, both now and hereafter, throughout the world. 
We place, O brother, this cross upon thy breast, that 
thou mayest love it with all thy heart, and may thy 
right hand ever fight in its defence ! Should it hap- 
pen that in fighting against the enemies of the faith 
thou shouldest desert the standard of the Cross and 
take to flight, thou wilt be stripped of the holy sign 
according to the statutes and customs of the Order, as 
having broken its vows, and thou wilt be cut off from 
our body." 

This poor, valiant, and ascetic society became in two 
hundred years enormously rich and luxurious. By its 
pride and its tyranny it had incurred the most deadly 
hatred of the common people, as is shown by their 
behavior during the insurrection of Wat Tyler and 
9 



130 



LONDON 



-XV 



■ ■'-".-<. ■ JVM . 

s»> . liar. . . . $- vA' 

Iks* R 




THE CHARTER HOUSE 



John Bull. The first step of the rebels in Essex was 
to destroy a fair manor-house belonging to the Knights 
Hospitallers, and to devour and waste the stores of 
food, wine, and clothes contained in it. On their way 
to London they destroyed another manor belonging 
to the Knights, that of Highbury. After they had 
burned and pillaged Lambeth and the Savoy, they 
went in a body to St. John's Priory and destroyed the 
whole of the buildings, church and all. And they 
seized and beheaded the Grand Prior, who was also 
Treasurer of the Realm. The church soon rose again, 
and the monastic buildings were replaced with more 
than the ancient splendor, and the luxury of the 
Knights was in no way diminished by this disaster. 
The Gate itself, part of the later buildings, now be- 
longs to the English Knights of St. John, who have 
established an ambulance station close beside it and 
maintain a hospital at Jerusalem. The very beautiful 



PLANTAGENET 131 

crypt of the church still stands and may be visited. 
Part of the walls of the mean modern church also be- 
longs to the old church. 

On the north side of the Priory and adjacent to it 
lay the twin Foundation of Briset, the Priory of Black 
Nuns. Its church, at the Dissolution, became the 
Parish Church of St. James Clerkenwell. Jordan Bri- 
set and his wife were buried in this church. 

The Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem was situ- 
ated at first outside Bishopsgate, close to St. Botolph's 
Church. This ancient Foundation, of which our Beth- 
lehem Hospital is the grandchild, was endowed by 
one Simon Fitz Mary, Sheriff in the year 1247. It 
was designed for a convent, the monks being obliged 
to receive and entertain the Bishop of Bethlehem or 
his nuncio whenever either should be in London. It 
is said to have become a hospital within a few years 
of its foundation. In the year 1347 the brethren 
were all engaged in collecting alms. This was one of 
the lesser Houses, though it survived the rest and be- 
came the great and splendid Foundation which still 
exists. A little farther north, and on the opposite 
side of Bishopsgate Street stood the great House of 
St. Mary Spita\—Domus Dei et Beatce Virginis — found- 
ed in the year 1 197 by Walter Brune and Rosia his 
wife. It was originally a Priory of Canons Regular. 
At some time in its history, I know not when, it was 
converted into a hospital, like its neighbor of Bethle- 
hem. It would be interesting to learn when this 
change became even possible. It must have been 
long after its foundation, when the old prayer-machine 
theory had lost something of its earliest authority, 
and, in the face of the mass of human suffering, men 



I32 LONDON 

began to ask whether the machinery engaged in iter- 
ating litanies might not be made more useful in the 
alleviation of suffering. For whatever cause, the House 
of God and the Blessed Virgin became St. Mary Spi- 
tal, and at the time of the Dissolution there were no 
fewer than one hundred and eighty beds in the House. 
Near St. Mary Spital was Holywell Nunnery. On 
the south side of Aldgate, outside the wall, stood the 
famous Abbey of St. Clare, called the Minories, found- 
ed by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, in the year 1293, 
for the reception of certain nuns brought over by his 
wife, Blanche, Queen of Navarre, who were professed 
to serve God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Francis. 

There is a church, one of the meanest and smallest 
of all the London churches, standing in the ugliest 
and dreariest part of the City, called the Church of 
the Holy Trinity, Minories, which is often visited by 
Americans because the arms of Washington are to be 
seen here ; and by antiquaries, because the head of 
the Duke of Suffolk, executed on Tower Hill, is pre- 
served here. The north wall of this church is part of 
the wall of the Clare Sisters' Church, and is all that 
remains in that squalid place of the noble Foundation. 

Sir Walter Manny's Carthusian House was not the 
only Foundation arising out of the great Plague of 
1348. On the north-east of the Tower arose at the 
same time a very stately House, dedicated to the 
Honor of God and the Lady of Grace. It began ex- 
actly in the same way as the Carthusians', by the pur- 
chase of a piece of ground in which to bury those who 
died of the plague. John Corey, Clerk, first bought 
the ground, calling it the Church -yard of the Holy 
Trinity. One Robert Elsing gave five pounds, and 



TLANTAGENET 



133 



other citizens contributing, the place was enclosed and 
a chapel built on it. Then Edward III., remember- 
ing a certain vow made during a certain tempest at 
sea, in which he was only saved by the miraculous in- 
terposition of the Virgin Mary herself, built here a 
monastery which he called the House and King's 
Free Chapel of the Blessed Virgin of Grace — " in me- 
moriam Gratiarum." The House obtained the Manor 
of Gravesend and other rich benefactions. There is 
little history that I have discovered belonging to it. 
The people commonly called it either New Abbey 
or Eastminster, and when it was surrendered its year- 
ly value was ^546, equivalent to about ,£10,000 a 
year as prices now obtain. 

On the south side of Thames, besides St. Mary 
Overies already noticed, there were two great Houses. 




RUINS OF THE CONVENT OF NUNS MINORIES, l8lO 



134 LONDON 

The first of these, St. Thomas's Hospital, was found- 
ed in the year 12 13 by Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, 
for converts and poor children. He called it the 
Almery. Two years afterwards the Bishop of Win- 
chester, Peter de Rupibus, now founded the place for 
Canons Regular. After the Dissolution it was pur- 
chased by the City of London for a hospital for the 
sick and poor. 

The second, Bermondsey Abbey, though founded 
as early as 1081 by one Alwyn Childe, Citizen, and 
probably one of Fitz Stephen's thirteen conventual 
churches, and a most interesting House from many 
points of view, hardly comes within our limits. Por- 
tions of the Abbey were standing until the beginning 
of this century. All the then existing remains were 
figured by Wilkinson ; I have not been able to find a 
fragment of it now remaining above-ground. Under- 
ground, vaults, arches, and crypts undoubtedly re- 
main, and will be discovered from time to time as ex- 
cavations are made for new buildings. These great 
Houses, all richly endowed with broad manors, de- 
voured a good part of the whole country. Their 
schools, their learning, and their charities are matters 
of sentiment if not of history. For the time came 
when the school should become free of the monastery, 
and when the vast estates formed for the benefit of 
the monks should pass into the hands of the commu- 
nity. Charity to the poor is a thing beautiful in it- 
self ; better than to relieve the poor is to lessen the 
necessity of poverty. 

But this long list of great Houses by no means ex- 
hausts the list. Besides these of the City, within it or 
else around it, were many others, not so rich, yet well 



PLANTAGENET 1 35 

endowed. He, for instance, who walks along the 
broad highway of Whitechapel and Mile End, if he 
continues his walk, presently arrives at a most inter- 
esting and venerable church. It is quite small, with 
a low tower ; it stands in the middle of the road, and 
has a long, narrow church-yard, cigar-shaped, before 
and behind it. This is the Church of St. Mary, or 
Bow Church. It was formerly the Church of a nun- 
nery founded at Stratford-le-Bow by William the Con- 
queror ; it was augmented by Stephen, enriched by 
Henry II. and Richard I., and it lasted till the Disso- 
lution. Let us remember that every new endowment 
of a monastic House meant the sequestration of so 
many acres of land ; they were taken from the coun- 
try and given to the Church ; they could never be 
sold ; the tenants could never acquire property or 
rise in the world ; all the lands owned by convents, 
churches, or colleges were lands withdrawn forever (as 
it seemed) from the healthy change and chance of pri- 
vate property. 

I do not think that Bow Church is mentioned in 
any of the London hand-books. There is yet another 
and a much more important and interesting Founda- 
tion which, I believe, is not recommended by any 
guide-book to the visitor. Yet Waltham Abbey Church 
is a place of the greatest interest. It may almost 
be ranked with Winchester, Westminster, Canterbury,. 
Caen, and Fontevrault as regards historic interest. 
Moreover, it is at this day a place of singular beauty, 
and is approached, by one who is well advised and 
can give up to the visit a whole afternoon and even- 
ing, by a most beautiful walk. The name Waltham 
has been explained as the place of the wall. In that 



136 LONDON 

case, here was a " waste Chester," a fortified enclosure 
found by the East Saxons when they overran the 
country, and left by them, as they left so many other 
places, to fall into decay. It seems most likely, how- 
ever, that the name is Wealdham, the place of the 
forest. 

The history of Waltham begins with a famous wed- 
ding feast. It is that of Tofig, the Royal Standard- 
bearer, and it caused the death of a king, because 
Hardeknut at this feast drank himself to death. The 
great Danish Thane built here a hunting lodge, the 
place being built in the midst of a mighty forest, of 
which vestiges remain to this day at Hampstead, 
Hornsey, and Epping. Now, Tofig held lands in 
Somersetshire as well as in Middlesex. And at a place 
called Lutgarsbury, which is now Montacute {inons 
acutus), a singular peaked hill, there lived a smith, 
who was moved in a dream to dig for a certain cross 
which, it was revealed to him, lay buried underground. 
He did so, and was rewarded by finding a splendid 
cross of black marble covered with silver and set with 
precious stones. When he had found it, he naturally 
thought it his duty to convey it to the nearest great 
monastery. In these days quite another course would 
suggest itself to the fortunate rustic. This smith of 
Lutgarsbury, therefore, placed the cross on the cart, 
and informed the oxen that he was going to drive 
them to Glastonbury, that holy House sacred to the 
memory of Joseph of Arimathea himself, and illustri- 
ous for its thorn flowering in midwinter. Miracle ! 
The oxen refused to move. The parish priest, called 
in to advise, suggested Canterbury, only second to 
Glastonbury in sanctity. Still these inspired animals 



PLANTAGENET 



'37 



refused to move. Perhaps Winchester might be tried. 
There they had the bones of St. Swithin. No, not 
even to Winchester would they carry the cross. 
" Then," said the priest, " let them carry the cross to 




BOW CHURCH, MILE END ROAD 



your master, Tofig, at Waltham." Strange to say, 
though Waltham had no special sanctity, the intelli- 
gent creatures immediately set off with the greatest 
alacrity in the direction of Waltham, a hundred and 



138 LONDON 

fifty miles away, and reached it after a ten days' jour- 
ney, bearing the cross safely. 

The story is preserved in a tract, De Inventione 
Sanctce Crucis Walthamensis, and must be believed by 
all the faithful. Thane Tofig showed his sense of 
what was due to a miracle by building a church for 
the reception of the cross, and appointing two canons 
to serve the church. It is also said that at least sixty 
persons were cured by means of this miraculous cross, 
and that many of them continued to live near the 
church in order to testify to its powers. When, a few 
years later, Harold obtained possession of the estate, 
he built a larger and more splendid church on the site, 
and placed twelve instead of two canons in it, with a 
dean and school-master. The church was consecrated 
in the year 1060, in the presence of King Edward and 
Edith his Queen. On his way south to meet William, 
Harold stopped to pray before the cross. While he 
prayed, the head on the cross, which had before look- 
ed upward, bent forward, and so remained downcast. 
On the field of Senlac, Harold's cry was " The Holy 
Cross." 

The body of the dead King was brought to the 
church and buried in the chancel. Only the nave re- 
mains, but there still stretches to the east a green space 
which was once the chancel, and somewhere under 
this green lawn lies the body of the last Saxon king. 

William the Conqueror spared the Foundation. Hen- 
ry II. replaced Harold's canons by monks of Rule. He 
is said to have rebuilt the church, but this is doubted. 
Probably some of the existing part, the nave, contains 
Harold's work, which was already Norman in char- 
acter. When, in 1307, the body of Edward I. was 



PLANTAGENET 1 39 

brought from the north to be buried in Westminster, 
it lay for seventeen days in the Abbey Church of Wal- 
tham. And the place is full of historical memories, 
not only of kings, but of worthies. Cranmer here ad- 
vised Henry VIII. concerning his divorce. Thomas 
Fuller here wrote his CliurcJi History. Foxe here wrote 
his Book of the Martyrs. The church now stands on 
the north side of a small and rather mean town ; it is 
in the midst of a large church-yard planted with yew- 
trees, and set with benches for the old to sit among the 
tombs. The grave of King Harold, somewhere under 
the turf, has over it the circled firmament instead of 
the lofty arch ; instead of the monkish litanies it hears 
the song of the lark and thrush ; instead of the whisper 
and the hushed footfall of the priests there is the 
voice of the children playing in the town and the 
multitudinous sound of work in the streets hard by. 
A happy exchange ! 

In the Old Jewry there was established by Henry 
III. — a Jewish synagogue being their first house — a 
branch of a very singular order — the Fratrcs de Peni- 
tcntid Jcsn or Fratres de Saccd. They were mendi- 
cants of the Franciscan Rule, and were dressed in sack- 
cloth to denote their poverty and their penitence. It 
was another and one of the last endeavors after a re- 
turn to the early zeal and the first poverty of the 
Order. For a time the new brotherhood enjoyed con- 
siderable popularity ; Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward 
I., took them under her protection and endowed the 
synagogue, which was all they had, with lands and 
houses. Unhappily the Council of Lyons, 1274, or- 
dered that there should be recognized no other mendi- 
cant friars except the Dominicans, the Minorites, the 



140 



LONDON 



Carmelites, and the Augustines. So one supposes 
that these Brothers, just as they were getting comfort- 
able in their synagogue, and beginning to reap the 
fruits of their austerities., had to turn out again, be- 
cause no one was allowed to give them anything, and 
so went back to the common Orders, who would not 
allow even the wearing of the sackcloth. One is sorry 
for the poor men so proud of their sackcloth and with 
such encouraging recognition already won. 




Again, there is not much in 
the modern Church of St. Giles 
in the Fields to suggest the 
past — a large stone church with a church-yard, stand- 
ing in a miserable district, which for two hundred 
years has been the haunt of criminals and vagabonds. 



PLANTAGENET 141 

Yet here was one of the very earliest Houses of piety 
and charity. Here was perhaps the earliest hospital 
founded in this land of Britain. It was instituted by 
Queen Maud, wife of Henry I., as a lazar-house for 
lepers and other poor sick men. What became of the 
lepers when there was no house for them ? They crept 
into empty hovels; they perished miserably, outcast, 
neglected. So long as they were strong enough to 
creep out they begged their bread ; when they could 
no longer crawl, they lay down and died. Thanks to 
the good Queen, some of them, at least, were cared for 
in their last days. A sweet fragrance of thanksgiving 
lingers still about the slums of St. Giles. The poor 
lepers who lie buried in that squalid church-yard still 
uplift a voice of praise for those who remember the 
sick and all that are desolate and sore oppressed. 

Nor is there at Charing Cross much to remind the 
visitor of the past. Yet here was a Foundation some- 
what unusual of its kind. It was an " alien " House. 
The Chapel, Hospital, or House of St. Mary Rounceval 
was founded by William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, 
who gave certain tenements to the Prior of Rounceval, 
or de Roscida Valle, in the Diocese of Pampeluna, 
Navarre. It was a House for eleven brethren. Henry 
IV. suppressed all alien priories, this among the rest, 
but it was restored by Edward IV. as a Fraternity. 
After the Dissolution the site of the House was used 
by the Earl of Northampton for the palace which, 
under the name of Northumberland House, stood 
until the other day, the last of the river-side palaces. 

Other great Houses are sometimes reckoned as 
London Houses, such as those of Barking, Wimbledon, 
Merton, and Chertsey ; but these are outside our 



142 LONDON 

limits. Nor can I touch here upon any of the relig- 
ious Foundations of Westminster. 

We have seen that when we lay down the monastic 
establishments upon the map, they occupy a very con- 
siderable part of the area within the walls. But when 
we consider, in addition, the great number of smaller 
Foundations, the colleges, hospitals, and fraternities 
with Houses, the parish churches and the church-yards, 
we shall begin to understand that the space required 
for ecclesiastical buildings alone in the confined area 
of a mediaeval town gives a very fair idea of the pow- 
er and authority of the Church. 

After the Monasteries come the Colleges, so called, 
by which we must not understand seats of learning, 
but colleges of priests. There were several of these : 

First, that of St. Thomas of Aeon. The college 
was founded by Agnes, sister of Thomas a Becket. 
She endowed it with her father's property in London. 
It stood on the site of the present Mercers' Chapel, 
and was built on the spot where the new saint was 
born. The Mercers' Chapel, however, occupies only 
a portion of the splendid church which was destroyed 
in the Great Fire. The Foundation received many 
endowments, and at the Dissolution its income was 
nearly ,£300 a year, equal to twenty times as much 
of modern money. The City, naturally proud of its 
saint, observed a curious annual function in connec- 
tion with this college. On the afternoon of the day 
when he was sworn at the Exchequer, the new Lord 
Mayor, with the Aldermen, met at this chapel and 
thence proceeded to St. Paul's, where first they prayed 
for the soul of Bishop William — who had been Bishop 
of London in the time of William the Conqueror. 



PLANTAGENET 143 

This done, they repaired to the tomb of Gilbert a 
Becket, in Pardon Church-yard, and there prayed for 
all faithful souls departed. Then they returned to 
St. Thomas Aeon and made an offering. Nothing 
is said about the evening, but one hopes that the day 
was concluded in the cheerful manner common at all 
times with London citizens. 

Next, the College of Whittington. 

This noble and wealthy merchant rebuilt the Church 
of St. Michael, called Paternoster in the Royal, and 
attached to it a College of St. Spirit and St. Mary for 
a master, from fellows, clerks, conducts, and choristers, 
together with an almshouse for thirteen poor men. 
They were all bound to pray for the soul of Sir Rich- 
ard Whittington and his wife, Dame Alice ; also for 
those of Sir William Whittington and Dame Joan, 
his wife, the parents of the founder. The college was 
swept away at the Dissolution ; the almshouse re- 
mained and was rebuilt after the Fire. They are now 
removed to Highgate, but a conventual feeling still 
lingers about the buildings at the back of the church. 

Then follows St. Michael's College, Crooked Lane. 

Sir William Walworth, the valiant Mayor who kill- 
ed Wat Tyler, founded a college of one master and 
nine chaplains to say mass in St. Michael's Church, 
the choir and the aisles of which he rebuilt. 

And there was also Jesus Commons. 

This Foundation seems to have resembled that of 
All-Souls, Oxford, in that its fellows had no duties to 
perform except the services of their chapel. It is 
described as a fair house in Dowgate (no doubt built 
round a small quadrangle), well furnished with every- 
thing and containing a good library, all for the use of 



144 LONDON 

those who lived there — a peaceful, quiet place, with- 
out any history. One thinks of the day when it had 
to be dissolved, and the poor old priests, who had 
lived so long in the house, were driven forth into the 
streets. Not even submission to the kfng's suprem- 
acy could save the tenants of Jesus Commons. The 
house itself was pulled down and tenements built in 
its place. 

A somewhat similar House was a small and very in- 
teresting Foundation called the Papey. It was a col- 
lege for poor and aged priests. In any old map the 
church called St. Augustine Papey may be seen at 
the north end of St. Mary Axe nestled under the wall, 
with a piece of ground adjoining, which may have 
been a garden and may have been a burial-ground. 
We find the poor old priests taking part in funerals, 
and, I daresay, in any other function by which their 
slender provision might be augmented. 

Next to the Colleges come the Hospitals. St. Bar- 
tholomew's, most ancient and richest, belongs to Nor- 
man London. 

One who walks along the street called London Wall 
will chance upon a church-yard, on the north side of 
which still stands a fragment of the old wall. This 
church-yard, narrow and small, is surrounded on three 
sides by warehouses ; on the fourth side it looks upon 
the street. On the other side of the street is a large 
block of warehouses, the monument of a most dis- 
graceful and shameful act of vandalism. On this spot 
stood Elsing Spital. It was founded in the year 1329 
as a priory and hospital for the maintenance of a hun- 
dred blind men by one William Elsing, its first Prior. 
On the dissolution of the religious houses, Elsing's 



PLANTAGENET 



145 




- iffr^ 



WALTHAM ABBEY CHURCH, ESSEX, BEFORE RESTORATION 



Spital surrendered with the rest, and was dissolved. 
What became of the blind men is not known. Then 
they took the fine Priory Church, and having pulled 
down the north aisle — on the site of which houses 
were built — they converted the rest of the church into 
the parish church of St. Alphege, which had previous- 
ly stood in Cripplegate. The site of the old church 



146 LONDON 

was turned into a carpenter's yard. The porch of St. 
Alphege remains of the ancient buildings. Of Sion 
College, which in course of time succeeded Elsing's 
Spital, we will speak in another place. 

That splendid Foundation which rears its wards on 
the south of the Thames, over against the Houses of 
Parliament, St. Thomas's Hospital, was founded in 
1 3 13 as an almery, or house of alms for converts and 
poor children ; but two years later the House was re- 
founded on a much larger scale. After the Dissolu- 
tion, its site, then in Southwark, was purchased by 
the citizens of London. To sum up, London was as 
well provided with hospitals in the fourteenth century 
as it was with convents and religious houses. They 
were St. Bartholomew's, Elsing Spital, St. Giles Crip- 
plegate, St. Mary Spital, St. Mary of Bethlehem. St. 
Thomas Southwark, and the Lazar House of South- 
wark. 

These hospitals, it must be borne in mind, were all 
religious Foundations governed by brethren of some 
Order. Religion ruled all. From the birth of the child 
to the death of the man religion, the forms, duties, 
and obedience due to religion, attended every one. 
No one thought it possible that it could be otherwise. 
The emancipation of mankind from the thrall of the 
Church, incomplete to the present day, had then hard- 
ly yet begun. All learning, all science, all the arts, 
all the professions, were in the hands of the Church. 
It is very easy to congratulate ourselves upon the re- 
moval of these chains. Yet they were certainly a 
necessary part of human development. Order, love 
of law, respect for human life, education in the power 
of self-government, such material advance as prepared 



PLANTAGENET 147 

the way — all these things had to be taught. No one 
could teach them or enforce them but the priest, by 
the authority and in the wisdom of the Church. On 
the whole, he did his best. At the darkest time the 
Church was always a little in advance of the people ; 
the Church at the lowest preserved some standard of 
morals, and of conduct ; and even if the standard was 
low, why, it was higher than that of the laity. 

When we see the Franciscans preaching to the peo- 
ple ; the Carthusians cowering silent and gloomy in 
their cells; the Dominicans insisting on the letter of 
the Faith ; kings and queens and great lords trying to 
get buried in the holy soil of a monastery church — let 
us recognize that, out of this discipline emerged the 
Londoner of Queen Bess, eager for adventure and for 
enterprise ; the Londoner who was so stout for liberty 
that he drove out one king and then another king, 
and set aside a dynasty for the sacred cause ; the 
Londoner of our own time, who is no whit inferior to 
his forefathers. 

One other form of religious society must be men- 
tioned — that of the Fraternity. There were Fraterni- 
ties attached to every church. Those of the same 
trade in a parish — those of the same trade in many 
parishes — united together in a Fraternity — of the 
Blessed Virgin, of the Holy Trinity, of the Corpus 
Christi, of Saint this or that. All the Danes in Lon- 
don joined together to make a Fraternity — or all the 
Dutch. All the fish-mongers, or all the pepperers; 
they formed Fraternities — not yet trades -unions or 
companies — which had masses sung for the souls of 
their brethren ; met in the churches on their Saint's 
Day ; had solemn service and a procession and a 



148 



LONDON 



feast. It is only by such a bond as this that any call- 
ing or trade can become dignified, self-respecting, and 
independent. The Fraternities were founded, for the 
most part, before the Companies. These could not 
have existed at all but for the impetus to union given 
by the Fraternities. Common action — the most im- 
portant discovery ever made for the common welfare 
— was made possible, among those who would other- 
wise have been torn asunder by rivalries and trade 
jealousies, by the Fraternities. 

Among the thirty-one who formed the goodly com- 




PORCH OF ST. SEPULCHRE S CHURCH 



PLANTAGENET 149 

pany which pilgrimized to Canterbury with Chaucer, 
twelve belonged to the Church. Was this proportion 
accidental ? I think not. Chaucer placed in his com- 
pany such a proportion of ecclesiastics as would be 
expected on such an occasion. The portraits of Chau- 
cer are taken from the life : he saw them in the streets 
of London ; in the houses ; in the churches. It helps 
us to understand the City, only to read those portraits 
over again. Are they so well known that it is super- 
fluous to do more than refer to them ? Perhaps not. 
Let us take them briefly. There is the Prioress, who 
has with her a nun for chaplain and three priests. She 
is a gentlewoman, smiling, coy, dainty in her habits 
and in her dress ; she is tender-hearted and fond of 
pets ; the nun's wimple is plaited ; on her arm she 
wears beads with a gold brooch — 

On whiche was first y-written a crowned A, 
And after Amor vincit omnia. 

She is lively, affectionate, and amiable, but she affects 
dignity as a Prioress should. Clearly the superior of 
an Order whose vows are not too strict, and whose au-' 
sterities respect the weakness of the sex. Who does 
not know, at the present day, hundreds of gentle maid- 
en ladies who might sit for the portrait of the Prior- 
ess? 

Then comes the Limitour, one who held the Bish- 
op's license to hear confessions, and to officiate with- 
in a certain district. This fellow is everybody's friend 
so long as he gets paid : the country gentlemen like 
him, and the good wives like him, because he hears 
confessions sweetly, and enjoins easy penance ; he 
could sing and play; he could drink; he knew all the 



150 LONDON 

taverns; he was to appearance a merry, careless toper; 
in reality, he was courteous only to the rich, and 
thought continually about his gains. He kept his 
district to himself, buying off those who tried to prac- 
tise within his limits. A natural product, the Limitour, 
of a time when outward forms make up all the religion 
that is demanded. 

The Oxford Clerk has no benefice because he has no 
interest. All the money that he got he spent in 
books ; his horse was lean ; he himself was lean and 
hollow. He travels to foreign universities in order to 
converse with scholars. 

The Monk was a big, brawny man, bald-headed, and 
his robe was trimmed with fur ; a great hunter who 
kept greyhounds and had many horses. He was fat 
and in good point ; he loved a fat swan best of any 
roast ; he wore a gold pin with a love knot. Obedi- 
ence to the Rules of his Order is not, it seems, ever 
expected of such a man. 

The Town Parson, of low origin, a learned man 
who loved his people, and was content with poverty, 
and gave all to the poor, and was ever at their service 
in all weathers. The picture of the good clergyman 
might serve for to-day. His parish was wide, but he 
went about 

Upon his feet, and in his hand a staf. 

This noble ensaumple unto his scheep he yaf, 

That first he wrought, and after that he taughte 

Out of the gospel he the wordes caughte, 

And this figure he added yet thereto, 

That if gold ruste, what scholde yren do? 

The Sompnour, or Summoner, an officer of the 



PLANTAGENET 1 53 

Ecclesiastical courts, is only half an ecclesiastic. His 
portrait is pure farce. 

Lastly, there is the Pardoner. He is the hypocrite. 
He carried sham relics about with him, and sold pigs' 
bones for precious and holy remains warranted to heal 
sheep and cattle, to bring good harvests, to prolong 
life, to bring increase of sowing. 

Of avarice and of swiche cursednesse 
Is al my preching, for to make hem free 
To yeve hir pense, and namely unto me. 

I wol non of the Apostles counterfete, 

I wol have money, wolle, chese, and whete. 

Al were it yeven of the pourest page, 

Or of the pourest widewe in a village, 

Al schulde hire children sterven for famine. 

If such pictures as these could be drawn and freely 
circulated, the first step was taken towards the Refor- 
mation. Only the first step. Before Reformation 
comes there must be more than the clear eyes of the 
prophets able to see and to proclaim the truth. The 
eyes of the people must be washed so that they, too, 
can discern the truth behind these splendid vestments 
and this gorgeous structure of authority. 

Such, so great, was the power and the wealth of the 
Church from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. 
Every street had its parish church with charities and 
Fraternities and endowments; colleges, Houses for 
priests, almeries, hospitals, were scattered all about 
the City; within and without the wall there were 
fifteen great Houses, whose splendor can only be un- 
derstood by the ruins of Tintern, Glastonbury, Fount- 
ains, or Whitby. Every House was possessed of rich 



154 LONDON 

manors and broad lands; every House had its treasury 
filled with title-deeds as well as with heaps of gold and 
silver plate; every House had its church crowded with 
marble monuments, adorned with rich shrines and 
blazing altars and painted glass, such as we can no 
longer make. Outside, the humblest parish church 
showed on its frescoed walls the warnings of Death 
and Judgment, the certainty of Heaven and Hell. 
And they thought — priest and people alike — that it 
was all going to last forever. Humanity had no other 
earthly hope than a continuance of the bells of Vile 
Sonnante. 



IV 

PLANTAGENET — continue d 

II. PRINCE AND MERCHANT 

IT is never safe to adopt in blind confidence the 
conclusions of the antiquary. He works with 
fragments ; here it is a passage in an old deed ; here a 
few lines of poetry; here a broken vase ; here the cap- 
ital of a column ; here a drawing, cramped, and out of 
proportion, and dwarfed, from an illuminated manu- 
script. This kind of work tends to belittle everything; 
the splendid city becomes a mean, small town ; King 
Solomon's Temple, glorious and vast, shrinks to the 
dimensions of a village conventicle ; Behemoth him- 
self becomes an alligator ; Leviathan, a porpoise ; his- 
tory, read by this reducing lens, becomes a series of 
patriotic exaggerations. For instance, the late Dr. 
Brewer, a true antiquary, if ever there was one, could 
see in mediaeval London nothing but a collection of 
mean and low tenements standing among squalid 
streets and filthy lanes. That this estimate of the 
City is wholly incorrect we shall now proceed to show. 
Any city, ancient or modern, might be described as 
consisting of mean and squalid houses, because in 
every city the poor outnumber the rich, and the small 



i 5 6 



LONDON 



houses of the poor are more frequent than the man- 
sions of the wealthy. 

When one who wishes to reconstruct a city of the past 
has obtained from the antiquary all he has discovered, 
and from the historian all he has to tell, there is yet 
another field of research open to him before he begins 
his task. It is the place itself — the terrain — the site 

of the town, or the mod- 
ern town upon the site 
of the old. He must ex- 
amine that; prowl about 
it ; search into it ; con- 
sider the neglected cor- 
ners of it. I will give an 
example. Fifty years 
ago a certain learned an- 
tiquary and scholar vis- 
ited the site of an an- 
cient Syrian city, now 
sadly reduced, and little 
more than a village. He 
looked at the place — he 
did not explore it, he 
looked at it — he then 
read whatever history 
has found to say of it ; 
he proceeded to prove that the place could never 
have been more than a small and insignificant town 
composed of huts and inhabited by fishermen. Those 
who spoke of it as a magnificent city he called en- 
thusiasts or liars. Forty years passed ; then another 
man came; he not only visited the site, but examined 
it, surveyed it, and explored it. This man discovered 




CHARING CROSS 

Erected by Edward I. in memory oj 
Queen Eleanor of Castile 



PLANTAGENET 1 57 

that the place had formerly possessed a wall — the 
remains still existing — two miles and more in length ; 
an acropolis, strong and well situated — the ruins still 
standing — protecting a noble city with splendid build- 
ings. The antiquary, you see, dealing with little frag- 
ments, could not rise above them ; his fragments 
seemed to belong to a whole which was puny and in- 
significant. This antiquary was Dr. Robinson, and 
the place was the once famous city of Tiberias, by the 
shores of the Galilean lake. 

In exactly the same manner, he who would under- 
stand mediaeval London must walk about modern 
London, but after he has read his historian and his 
antiquary, not before. Then he will be astonished to 
find how much is left, in spite of fires, reconstructions 
and demolitions, to illustrate the past. 

Here a quaint little square, accessible only to foot- 
passengers, shut in, surrounded by merchants' offices, 
still preserves its ancient form of a court in a suppress- 
ed monastery. Since the church is close by, one ought 
to be able to assign the court to its proper purpose. 
The hall, the chapter-house, the kitchens and buttery, 
the abbot's residence, may have been built around 
this court. 

Again, another little square set with trees, like a 
Place in Toulon or Marseilles, shows the former court 
of a royal palace. And here a venerable name sur- 
vives telling what once stood on the site ; here a dingy 
little church-yard marks the former position of a 
church as ancient as any in the City. 

London is full of such survivals, which are known 
only to one who prowls about its streets, note-book in 
hand, remembering what he has read. Not one of 



i 5 8 



LONDON 



them can be got from the book antiquary, or from the 
guide-book. As one after the other is recovered the 
ancient city grows not only more vivid, but more pict- 
uresque and more splendid. London a city of low 




CHURCH OF ST. PAUL'S, BEFORE THE FIRE 



mean tenements ? Dr. Brewer — Dr. Brewer ! Why, I 
see great palaces along the river-bank between the 
quays and ports and warehouses. In the narrow lanes 
that rise steeply from the river I see other houses fair 
and stately, each with its gate-way, its square court, 
and its noble hall, high roofed, with its oriel-windows 
and its lantern. Beyond these narrow lanes, north of 
Watling Street and Budge Row, more of those houses 
— and still more, till we reach the northern part where 
the houses are nearly all small, because here the 
meaner sort and those who carry on the least desir- 
able trades have those dwellings. 



PLANTAGENET 1 59 

You have seen that London was full of rich mon- 
asteries, nunneries, colleges, and parish churches, in 
so much that it might be likened unto the He Sonnante 
of Rabelais. You have now to learn, what I believe 
no one has ever yet pointed out, that if it could be 
called a city of churches it was much more a city of 
palaces. This shall immediately be made clear. There 
were, in fact, in London itself more palaces than in 
Verona and Florence and Venice and Genoa all to- 
gether. There was not, it is true, a line of marble 
paiazzi along the banks of a Grande Canale ; there was 
no Piazza della Signoria, no Piazza della Erbe to show 
these buildings. They were scattered about all over 
the City ; they were built without regard to general 
effect and with no idea of decoration or picturesque- 
ness ; they lay hidden in narrow winding labyrinthine 
streets; the warehouses stood beside and between 
them ; the common people dwelt in narrow courts 
around them ; they faced each other on opposite sides 
of the lanes. 

These palaces belonged to the great nobles and 
were their town houses ; they were capacious enough 
to accommodate the whole of a baron's retinue, con- 
sisting sometimes of four, six, or even eight hundred 
men. Let us remark that the continual presence of 
these lords and their following did much more for the 
City than merely to add to its splendor by the erect- 
ing of great houses. By their residence they prevent- 
ed the place from becoming merely a trading centre 
or an aggregate of merchants ; they kept the citizens 
in touch with the rest of the kingdom ; they made the 
people of London understand that they belonged to 
the Realm of England. When Warwick, the King- 



i6o 



LONDON 



maker, rode through the streets to his town-house, 
followed by five hundred retainers in his livery ; when 
King Edward the Fourth brought wife and children 
to the City and left them there under the protection 
of the Londoners while he rode out to fight for his 
crown ; when a royal tournament was held in Chepe 
— the Queen' and her ladies looking on — then the very 
school -boys learned and understood that there was 




MONUMENTS OF ST. PAUL'S WHICH SURVIVED THE FIRE 
(EAST END OF THE NORTH CRYPT) 



PLANTAGENET l6l 

more in the world than mere buying and selling, im- 
porting and exporting ; that everything must not be 
measured by profit ; that they were traders indeed, 
and yet subjects of an ancient crown ; that their own 
prosperity stood or fell with the well-doing of the 
country. This it was which made the Londoners ar- 
dent politicians from very early times ; they knew the 
party leaders who had lived among them ; the City 
was compelled to take a side, and the citizens quickly 
perceived that their own side always won — a thing 
which gratified their pride. In a word, the presence 
in their midst of king and nobles made them look be- 
yond their walls. London was never a Ghent ; nor 
was it a Venice. It was never London for itself 
against the world, but always London for England 
first, and for its own interests next. 

Again, the City palaces, the town -houses of the 
nobles, were at no time, it must be remembered, for- 
tresses. The only fortress of the City was the White 
Tower. The houses were neither castellated nor for- 
tified nor garrisoned. They were entered by a gate, 
but there was neither ditch nor portcullis. The gate 
— only a pair of wooden doors — led into an open court 
round which the buildings stood. Examples of this 
way of building may still be seen in London. For 
instance, Staple Inn, or Barnard's Inn, affords an ex- 
cellent illustration of a mediaeval mansion. There 
are in each two square courts with a gate-way leading 
from the road into the Inn. Between the courts is a 
hall with its kitchen and buttery. Clifford's Inn, 
Gray's Inn and Old Square, Lincoln's Inn are also 
good examples. Sion College, before they wickedly 
destroyed it, showed the hall and the court. Hamp- 
ii 



1 62 



LONDON 




ANCIENT NORTH-EAST VIEW OF 
BISHOPSGATE STREET 



ton Court is a late example, the position of the Hall 
having been changed. Gresham House was built 
about a court. So was the Mansion House. Till a 
few years ago Northumberland House, at Charing 
Cross, illustrated the disposition of such mansions. 
Those who walk down Queen Victoria Street in the 
City pass on the north side a red brick house standing 
round three sides of a quadrangle. This is the Her- 
ald's College ; a few years ago it preserved its fourth 
side with its gate-way. Four hundred years ago this 
was the town-house of the Earls of Derby. Restore 
the front and you have the size of a great noble's 
town palace, yet not one of the largest. If you wish 
to understand the disposition of such a building as a 



PLANTAGENET 163 

nobleman's town-house, compare it with the Quadran- 
gle of Clare, or that of Queens', Cambridge. Derby 
House was burned down in the Fire, and was rebuilt 
without its hall, kitchen, and butteries, for which there 
was no longer any use. As it was before the Fire, a 
broad and noble arch with a low tower, but showing 
no appearance of fortification, opened into the square 
court which was used as an exercising ground for the 
men at arms. In the rooms around the court was 
their sleeping accommodation ; at the side or opposite 
the entrance stood the hall where the whole house- 
hold took meals ; opposite to the hall was the kitchen 
with its butteries ; over the butteries was the room 
called the Solar, where the Earl and Countess slept ; 
beyond the hall was another room called the Lady's 
Bower, where the ladies could retire from the rough 
talk of the followers. We have already spoken of 
this arrangement. The houses beside the river were 
provided with stairs, at the foot of which was the 
state barge in which my Lord and my Lady took the 
air on fine days, and were rowed to and from the 
Court at Westminster. 

There remains nothing of these houses. They are, 
with one exception, all swept away. Yet the descrip- 
tion of one or two, the site of others, and the actual 
remains of one sufficiently prove their magnificence. 
Let us take one or two about which something- is 
known. For instance, there is Baynard's Castle, the 
name of which still survives in that of Baynard's 
Castle Ward, and in that of a wharf which is still 
called by the name of the old palace. 

Baynard's Castle stood first on the river-bank close 
to the Fleet Tower and the western extremity of the 



164 



LONDON 



wall. The great house which afterwards bore this 
name was on the bank, but a little more to the east. 
There was no house in the City more interesting than 
this. Its history extends from the Norman Conquest 
to the Great Fire — exactly six hundred years ; and 
during the whole of this long period it was a great 
palace. First it was built by one Baynard, follower 
of William. It was forfeited in a.d. mi, and given 
to Robert Fitzwalter, son of Richard, Earl of Clare, 
in whose family the office of Castellan and Standard- 
bearer to the City of London became hereditary. His 
descendant, Robert, in revenge for private injuries, 
took part with the Barons against King John, for 
which the King ordered Baynard's Castle to be de- 
stroyed. Fitzwalter, however, becoming reconciled 

to the King, was 
permitted to re- 
build his house. 
It was again de- 
stroyed, this time 
by fire, in 1428. 
It was rebuilt by 
Humphrey, Duke of Glouces- 
ter, on whose attainder it re- 
verted to the crown. Dur- 
ing one of these rebuildings 
it was somewhat shifted in 
position. Richard, Duke of 
York, next had it, and lived 
here with his following of four hundred gentlemen 
and men at arms. It was in the hall of Baynard's Cas- 
tle that Edward IV. assumed the title of king, and 
summoned the bishops, peers, and judges to meet him 




THE COLLEGE OF ARMS, OR 
herald's OFFICE 



PLANTAGENET 



l6 5 













n 



j1||:Ws5lf .] .mf 



BRIDEWELL 



in council. Edward gave the house to his mother, 
and placed in it for safety his wife and children be- 
fore going out to fight the battle of Barnet. Here 
Buckingham offered the crown to Richard. 

Alas! why would you heap these cares on me? 

I am unfit for state and majesty; 

I do beseech you — take it not amiss — 

I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you. 

Henry VIII. lived in this palace, which he almost 
entirely rebuilt. Prince Henry, after his marriage 
with Catherine of Aragon, was conducted in great 




VIEW OF THE SAVOY FROM THE THAMES 



1 66 LONDON 

state up the river, from Baynard's Castle to Westmin- 
ster, the Mayor and Commonalty of the City follow- 
ing in their barges. In the time of Edward VI. the 
Earl of Pembroke, whose wife was sister to Queen 
Catharine Parr, held great state in this house. Here 
he proclaimed Queen Mary. When Mary's first Par- 
liament was held, he proceeded to Baynard's Castle, 
followed by " 2000 horsemen in velvet coats with 
their laces of gold and gold chains, besides sixty gen- 
tlemen in blue coats with his badge of the green 
dragon." This powerful noble lived to entertain 
Queen Elizabeth at Baynard's Castle with a banquet, 
followed by fireworks. The last appearance of the 
place in history is when Charles II. took supper there 
just before the Fire swept over it and destroyed it. 

Another house by the river was that called Cold 
Harborough, or Cold Inn. 

This house stood to the west of the old Swan 
Stairs. It was built by a rich City merchant, Sir John 
Poultney, four times Mayor of London. At the end 
of the fourteenth century it belonged, however, to 
John Holland, Duke of Exeter, son of Thomas Hol- 
land, Duke of Kent, and Joan Plantagenet, the " Fair 
Maid of Kent." He was half-brother to King Rich- 
ard II., whom here he entertained. Richard III. gave 
it to the Heralds for their college. They were turned 
out, however, by Henry VII., who gave the house to 
his mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond. His 
son gave it to the Earl of Shrewsbury, by whose son 
it was taken down, one knows not why, and mean 
tenements erected in its place for the river-side work- 
ing-men. 

Another royal residence was the house called the 



t'yv ->X^k 



r rw 



p£> 



f'V i#* 

'v ' '/ 
» < lift' 




PLANTAGENET 



169 



Erber. This house also has a long history. It is said 
to have been first built by the Knight Pont de l'Arche, 
founder of the Priory of St. Mary Overies. Edward 
III. gave it to Geoffrey le Scrope. It passed from him 
to John, Lord Neville, of Raby, and so to his son 
Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, the stanch sup- 
porter of Henry IV. From him the Erber passed into 
the hands of another branch of the Nevilles, the Earls 
of Salisbury and Warwick. The King-maker resided 
here, with a following so numerous that six oxen were 
daily consumed for breakfast alone, and any person 
who was allowed within the gates could take away as 
much meat, sodden and roast, as he could carry upon 
a long dagger. After his death, George, Duke of 
Clarence — " false, fleeting, perjured Clarence" — obtain- 
ed a grant of the house, in right of his wife, Isabel, 
daughter of Warwick. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 
succeeded, and called it the King's Palace during his 
brief reign. Edward, son of the Duke of Clarence, 
then obtained it. In the year 1584 the place, which 
seems to have fallen into decay, was rebuilt by Sir 
Thomas Pulsdon, Lord Mayor. Its last illustrious oc- 
cupant, according to Stow, was Sir Francis Drake. 

We are fortunate in having left one house at least, 
or a fragment of one, out of the many London palaces. 
The Fire of 1666 spared Crosby Place, and though 
most of the old mansion has been pulled down, there 
yet remains the Hall, the so-called Throne Room, and 
the so-called Council Room. The mansion formerly 
covered the greater part of what is now called Crosby 
Square. It was built by a simple citizen, a grocer 
and Lord Mayor, Sir John Crosby, in the fifteenth 
century; a man of great wealth and great position; 



\JO LONDON 

a merchant, diplomatist, and ambassador. He rode 
north to welcome Edward IV. when he landed at 
Ravenspur ; he was sent by the King on a mission to 
the Duke of Burgundy and to the Duke of Brittany. 
Shakespeare makes Richard of Gloucester living in 
this house as early as 147 1, four years before the 
death of Sir John Crosby, a thing not likely. But he 
was living here at the death of Edward IV., and here 
he held his levees before his usurpation of the crown. 
In this hall, where now the City clerks snatch a hasty 
dinner, sat the last and worst of the Plantagenets, 
thinking of the two boys who stood between him and 
the crown. Here he received the news of their murder. 
Here he feasted with his friends. The place is charged 
with the memory of Richard Plantagenet. Early in 
the next century another Lord Mayor obtained it, and 
lent it to the ambassador of the Emperor Maximilian. 
It passed next into the hands of a third citizen, also 
Lord Mayor, and was bought in 15 16 by Sir Thomas 
More, who lived here for seven years, and wrote in this 
house his Utopia and his Life of Richard the Third. 
His friend, Antonio Bonvici, a merchant of Lucca, 
next lived in the house. To him More wrote his well- 
known letter from the Tower. William Roper, More's 
son-in-law, and William Rustill, his nephew; Sir 
Thomas d'Arcy ; William Bond, Alderman and Sher- 
iff, and merchant adventurer ; Sir John Spencer, an- 
cestor of Lord Northampton ; Mary, Countess of Pem- 
broke, and sister of Sir Philip Sidney — 



The gentlest shepherdess that lived that day ; 
And most resembling, both in shape and spirit 
Her brother dear — 



1)1 



f |f/J I F%-> 






Uflf 



; 




| v)| J '.!;_ i..Ml! 



4SllL 



PLANTAGENET 



173 



the Earl of Northampton, who accompanied Charles 
I. to Madrid on his romantic journey ; Sir Stephen 
Langham — were successive owners or occupants of 
this house. It was partly destroyed by fire — not the 
Great Fire — in the reign of Charles II. The Hall, which 
escaped, was for seventy years a Presbyterian meeting- 
house ; it then became a packer's warehouse. Sixty 
years ago it was partly restored, and became a literary 
institution. It is now a restaurant, gaudy with color 




- "> >Ws/»t 



CROSBY HOUSE, BISHOPSGATE STREET 



and gilding. The Due de Biron, ambassador from 
France in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was lodged 
here, with four hundred noblemen and gentlemen in 
his train. And here also was lodged the Due de 
Sully. 

In a narrow street in the City, called Tower Royal 
— Tour De La Reole, built by merchants from Bor- 
deaux — survives the name of a house where King 



174 LONDON 

Stephen lived in the short intervals when he was not 
fighting; King Richard II. gave it to his mother, and 
called it the Queen's Wardrobe ; he afterwards as- 
signed it to Leon III., King of Armenia, who had 
been dispossessed by the Turks. Richard III. gave 
it to John, Duke of Norfolk, who lived here until his 
death at the battle of Bosworth Field. There is no 
description of the house, which must have had a tower 
of some kind, and there is no record of its demolition : 
Stow only says that " of late times it has been neg- 
lected and turned into stabling for the king's horses, 
and is now let out to divers men, and is divided into 
tenements." 

The Heralds' College in Queen Victoria Street, al- 
ready mentioned, stands on the site of Derby House. 
Here the first Earl, who married the mother of Henry 
VII., lived. Here the Princess Elizabeth of York 
was the guest of the Earl during the usurpation of 
Richard. The house was destroyed in the Fire and 
rebuilt in a quadrangle, of which the front portion 
was removed to make room for the new street. 

Half a dozen great houses do not make a city of 
palaces. That is true. Let us find others. Here, 
then, is a list, by no means exhaustive, drawn up 
from the pages of Stow. The Fitz Alans, Earls of 
Arundel, had their town house in Botolph Lane, Bil- 
lingsgate, down to the end of the sixteenth century. 
The street is and always has been narrow, and, from 
its proximity to the fish -market, is and always has 
been unsavory. The Earls of Northumberland had 
town houses successively in Crutched Friars, Fen- 
church Street, and Aldersgate Street. The Earls of 
Worcester lived in Worcester Lane, on the river-bank ; 




INTERIOR OF CROSBY HALL 



PLANTAGENET \JJ 

the Duke of Buckingham on College Hill: observe 
how the nobles, like the merchants, built their houses 
in the most busy part of the town. The Beaumonts 
and the Huntingdons lived beside Paul's Wharf ; the 
Lords of Berkeley had a house near Blackfriars ; Doc- 
tor's Commons was the town house of the Blounts, 
Lords Mountjoy. Close to Paul's Wharf stood the 
mansion once occupied by the widow of Richard, 
Duke of York, mother of Edward IV., Clarence, and 
Richard III. Edward the Black Prince lived on Fish 
Street Hill ; the house was afterwards turned into an 
inn. The De la Poles had a house in Lombard Street. 
The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, lived first in St. Mary 
Axe, and afterwards in Oxford Court, St. Swithin's 
Lane ; Cromwell, Earl of Essex, had a house in Throg- 
morton Street. The Barons Fitzwalter had a house 
where now stands Grocers' Hall, Poultry. In Alders- 
gate Street were houses of the Earl of Westmoreland, 
the Earl of Northumberland, and the Earl of Thanet, 
Lord Percie, and the Marquis of Dorchester. Suffolk 
Lane marks the site of the " Manor of the Rose," be- 
longing successively to the Suffolks and the Bucking- 
hams; Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row, marks the 
site of the Lovells' mansion ; between Amen Corner 
and Ludgate Street stood Abergavenny House, where 
lived in the reign of Edward II. the Earl of Richmond 
and Duke of Brittany, grandson of Henry III. Af- 
terwards it became the house of John Hastings, Earl 
of Pembroke, who married Lady Margaret, daughter 
of Edward III. It passed to the Nevilles, Earl of 
Abergavenny, and from them to the Stationers' Com- 
pany. Warwick Lane runs over Warwick House. 
The Sidneys, Earls of Leicester, lived in the Old Bai- 
12 



1 7 8 



LONDON 







INTERIOR OF PART OF CROSBY HALL, CALLED THE COUNCIL ROOM, LOOKING EAST 

ley. The Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham, lived in 
Milk Street. 

Such a list, numbering no fewer than thirty-five pal- 
aces — which is not exhaustive and does not include 
the town houses of the Bishops and great Abbots, nor 
the halls of the companies, many of them very noble, 
nor the houses used for the business of the City, as 
Blackwell Hall and Guildhall — is, I think, sufficient 



PLANT AGENET 1 79 

to prove my statement that London was a city of 
palaces. 

Nothing, again, has been said about the houses of 
the rich merchants, some of which were much finer 
than those of the nobles. Crosby Hall, as has been 
seen, was built by a merchant. In Basing Lane (now 
swallowed up by those greedy devourers of old houses, 
Cannon Street and Queen Victoria Street), stood 
Gerrard's Hall, with a Norman Crypt and a high-roofed 
Hall, where once they kept a Maypole and called it 
Giant Gerrard's staff. This was the hall of the house 
built by John Gisors, Mayor in the year 1305. The 
Vintners' Hall stands on the site of a great house 
built by Sir John Stodie, Mayor in 1357. In the 
house called the Vintry, Sir Henry Picard, Mayor, once 
entertained a very noble company indeed. Among 
them were King Edward III., King John of France, 
King David of Scotland, the King of Cyprus, and the 
Black Prince. After the banquet they gambled, the 
Lord Mayor defending the bank against all comers with 
dice and hazard. The King of Cyprus lost his money, 
and, unfortunately, his Royal temper as well. To lose 
the latter was a common infirmity among the kings 
of those ages. The Royal Rage of the proverb is one 
of those subjects which the essayist enters in his notes 
and never finds the time to treat. Then up spake Sir 
Henry, with admonition in his voice: Did his High- 
ness of Cyprus really believe that the Lord Mayor, 
a merchant adventurer of London, whose ships rode 
at anchor in the Cyprian King's port of Famagusta, 
should seek to win the money of him or of any other 
king? "My Lord and King," he said, "be not ag- 
grieved. I court not your gold, but your play; for I 



i8o 



LONDON 



have not bidden you hither that you might grieve." 
And so gave the king his money back. But John, 
King of France, and David, King of Scotland, and the 
Black Prince murmured and whispered that it was not 
fitting for a king to take back money lost at play. 
And the good old King Edward stroked his gray 
beard, but refrained from words. 

Another entertainer of kings was Whittington. 
What sayeth the wise man ? 

" Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He 
shall stand before kings." 

They used to show an old house in Hart Lane, 












2*! ? 1BS I 3 I, *T7*^~ 






- — ; 'fgnt&*'" u s - c ~ -'•' 



GATEWAY, ETC., IN CROSBY SQUARE (NOW DESTROYED) 



PLANTAGENET l8l 

rich with carved wood, as Whittington's, but he must 
have lived in his own parish of St. Michael's Pater- 
noster Royal, and, one is pretty certain, on the spot 
where was afterwards built his college, which stood on 
the north side of the church. Here he entertained 
Henry of Agincourt and Katherine, his bride, with a 
magnificence which astonished the king. But Whit- 
tington knew what he was doing ; the banquet was 
not ostentation and display ; its cost was far more 
than repaid by the respect for the wealth and power 
of the city which it nourished and maintained in the 
kingly mind. The memory of this and other such 
feasts, we may be very sure, had its after effect even 
upon those most masterful of sovereigns, Henry VIII. 
and Queen Bess. On this occasion it was nothing 
that the tables groaned with good things, and glitter- 
ed with gold and silver plate ; it was nothing that the 
fires were fed with cedar and perfumed wood. For 
this princely Mayor fed these fires after dinner with 
nothing less than the king's bonds to the amount of 
,£60,000. In purchasing power that sum would now 
be represented by a million and a quarter. 

A truly royal gift. 

It was not given to many merchants, " sounding al- 
ways the increase of their winning," thus to thrive and 
prosper. Most of them lived in more modest dwell- 
ings. All of them lived in comparative discomfort," ac- 
cording to modern ideas. When we read of mediaeval 
magnificence we must remember that the standard of 
what we call comfort was much lower in most respects 
than at present. In the matter of furniture, for in- 
stance, though the house was splendid inside and out 
with carvings, coats of arms painted and gilt, there 



1 82 LONDON 

were but two or three beds in it, the servants sleeping 
on the floor ; the bedrooms were small and dark ; the 
tables were still laid on trestles, and removed when 
the meal was finished; there were benches where we 
have chairs ; and for carpet they had rushes or mats of 
plaited straw ; and though the tapestry was costly, 
the windows were draughty, and the doors ill-fitting. 
When, with the great commercial advance of the four- 
teenth century, space by the river became more valu- 
able, the disposition of the Hall, with its little court, 
became necessarily modified. The house, which was 
warehouse as well as residence, ran up into several 
stories high — the earliest maps of London show many 
such houses beside Queenhithe, and in the busiest and 
most crowded parts of the City ; on every story there 
was a wide door for the reception of bales and crates ; 
a rope and pulley were fixed to a beam at the highest 
gable for hoisting and lowering the goods. The front 
of the house was finely ornamented with carved wood- 
work. One may still see such houses — streets full of 
them — in the ancient City of Hidelsheim, near Han- 
over. 

On the river- bank, exactly under what is now 
Cannon Street Railway Station, stood the Steelyard, 
Guildae Aula Teutonicorum. In appearance it was a 
house of stone, with a quay towards the river, a square 
court, a noble Hall, and three arched gates towards 
Thames Street. This was the house of the Hanseatic 
League, whose merchants for three hundred years and 
more enjoyed the monopoly of importing hemp, corn, 
wax, steel, linen cloths, and, in fact, carried on the 
whole trade with Germany and the Baltic, so that 
until the London merchants pushed out their ships 



PLA.NTAGENET 



18 








y^x- 



CKOS>BV HALL 



into the Mediterranean and the Levant their foreign 
trade was small, and their power of gaining wealth 
small in proportion. This strange privilege granted 
to foreigners grew by degrees. At first, unless the 



1 84 LONDON 

foreign merchants of the Hanse towns and of Flanders 
and of France had not brought over their wares they 
could not have sold them, because there were no Lon- 
don merchants to import them. Therefore they came, 
and they came to stay. They gradually obtained 
privileges ; they were careful to obey the laws, and 
give no cause for jealousy or offence ; and they kept 
their privileges, living apart in their own college, till 
Edward VI. at last took them away. In memory of 
their long residence in the city, the merchants of 
Hamburg in the reign or Queen Anne presented the 
church where they had worshipped, All Hallows the 
Great, with a magnificent screen of carved wood. The 
church, built by Wren after the Fire, is a square box 
of no architectural pretensions, but is glorified by this 
screen. 

The great (comparative) wealth of the City is shown 
by the proportion it was called upon to pay towards 
the king's loans. In 1397, for instance, London was 
assessed at £6,666 13^. 4//., while Bristol, which came 
next, was called upon for ^800 only ; Norwich for 
,£333, Boston for ,£300, and Plymouth for no more 
than £20. And in the graduated poll tax of 1379, 
the Lord Mayor of London had to pay £4 — the same 
as an Earl, a Bishop, or a mitred Abbot, while the 
Aldermen were regarded as on the same line with 
Barons, and paid £2 each. 

Between the merchant adventurers, who sometimes 
entertained kings and had a fleet of ships always on 
the sea, and the retail trader there was as great a gulf 
then as at any after-time. Between the retail trader, 
who was an employer of labor, and the craftsman 
there was a still greater gulf. The former lived in 



PLANTAGENET 185 

plenty and in comfort. His house was provided with 
a spacious hearth, and windows, of which the upper 
part, at least, was of glass. The latter lived in one of 
the mean and low tenements, which, according to Dr. 
Brewer, made up the whole of London. There were 
a great many of those, because there are always a 
great many poor in a large town. Nay, there were 
narrow lanes and filthy courts where there were noth- 
ing but one-storied hovels, built of wattle and clay, 
the roof thatched with reeds, the fire burning in the 
middle of the room, the occupants sleeping in old 
Saxon fashion, wrapped in rugs around the central 
fire. The lanes and courts were narrow and unpaved, 
and filthy with every kind of refuse. In those crowded 
and fetid streets the plague broke out, fevers always 
lingered, the children died of putrid throat, and in 
these places began the devastating fires that from 
time to time swept the City. 

The main streets of the City were not mean at all ; 
they were broad, well built, picturesque. If here and 
•there a small tenement reared its timbered and plas- 
tered front among the tall gables, it added to the 
beauty of the street ; it broke the line. Take Chepe, 
for instance, the principal seat of retail trade. At 
the western end stood the Church of St. Michael le 
Quern where Paternoster Row begins. On the north 
side were the churches of St. Peter West Chepe, St. 
Thomas Aeon, St. Mary Cole Church, and St. Mil- 
dred. On the south side were the churches of St. Mary 
le Bow and St. Mary Woolchurch. In the streets run- 
ning north and south rose the spires of twenty other 
churches. On the west side of St. Mary le Bow stood 
a long stone gallery, from which the Queen and her 



1 86 LONDON 

ladies could witness the tournaments and the ridings. 
In the middle was the " Standard," with a conduit of 
fresh-water ; there were two crosses, one being that 
erected by Edward I., to mark a resting-place of his 
dead Queen. Round the " Standard " were booths. 
At the west end of Chepe were selds, which are be- 
lieved to have been open bazaars for the sale of goods. 
Another cross stood at the west end, close to St. 
Michael le Quern. Here executions of citizens were 
held ; on its broad road the knights rode in tilt on 
great days ; the stalls were crowded with those who 
came to look on and to buy, the street was noisy with 
the voices of those who displayed their wares and called 
upon the folk to buy— buy — buy. You may hear the 
butchers in Clare Market or the costers in Whitecross 
Street keeping up the custom to the present day. 
The citizens walked and talked ; the Alderman went 
along in state, accompanied by his officers ; they 
brought out prisoners and put them into the pillory ; 
the church bells clashed, and chimed, and tolled ; 
bright cloth of scarlet hung from the upper windows 
if it was a feast day, or if the Mayor and Aldermen 
had a riding ; the streets were bright with the colors 
of that many-colored time, when the men vied with 
the women in bravery of attire, and when all classes 
spent upon raiment sums of money, in proportion to 
the rest of their expenditure, which sober nine- 
teenth-century folk can hardly believe. Chaucer is 
full of the extravagance in dress. There is the young 
squire — 

Embroidered was he as if it were a mead 
All full of freshest flowers, white and red. 



I'LANTAGENET 1 89 

Or the carpenter's wife — 

A seynt [girdle] she wered barred all of silk 
In barm cloth eke as white as morne milk 
Upon her lendes [loins] full of many a gore. 
White was her smock and browded all before, 
And eke behind on her coler about 
Of cole black silk within and eke without. 

Or the wife of Bath, with her scarlet stockings and 
her fine kerchiefs. And the knights decked their 
horses as gayly as themselves. And the city notables 
went clad in gowns of velvet or silk lined with fur ; 
their hats were of velvet with gold lace ; their doub- 
lets were of rich silk ; they carried thick gold chains 
about their necks, and massive gold rings upon their 
fingers. 

With all this outward show, this magnificence of 
raiment, these evidences of wealth, would one mark 
the small tenements which here and there, even in 
Chepe, stood between the churches and the substan- 
tial merchants' houses? We measure the splendors 
of a city by its best, and not by its worst. 

The magnates of London, from generation to gen- 
eration, showed far more wisdom, tenacity, and clear- 
ness of vision than can be found in the annals of Ven- 
ice, Genoa, or any other mediaeval city. Above all 
things, they maintained the city liberties and the 
rights obtained from successive kings ; yet they were 
always loyal so long as loyalty was possible ; when 
that was no longer possible, as in the case of Richard 
II., they threw the whole weight of their wealth and 
influence into the other side. If fighting was wanted, 
they were ready to send out their youths to fight — 
nay, to join the army themselves ; witness the story 



190 LONDON 

of Sir John Philpot, Mayor in 1378. There was a cer- 
tain Scottish adventurer named Mercer. This man 
had gotten together a small fleet of ships, with which 
he harassed the North Sea and did great havoc among 
the English merchantmen. Nor could any remon- 
strance addressed to the Crown effect any redress. 
What was to be done ? Clearly, if trade was to be car- 
ried on at all, this enemy must be put down. There- 
fore, without much ado, the gallant Mayor gathered 
together at his own expense a company of a thousand 
stout fellows, put them on board, and sallied forth, 
himself their admiral, to fight this piratical Scot. He 
found him, in fact, in Scarborough Bay with his prizes. 
Sir John fell upon him at once, slew him and most of 
his men, took all his ships, including the prizes, and 
returned to the port of London with his spoils, includ- 
ing fifteen Spanish ships which had joined the Scotch- 
man. Next year the king was in want of other help. 
The arms and armor of a thousand men were in pawn. 
Sir John took them out. And because the king want- 
ed as many ships as he could get for his expedition 
into France, Sir John gave him all his own, with Mer- 
cer's ships and the Spanish prizes. 

To treat adequately of the foreign trade of the city 
during these centuries would require a volume. It 
has, in fact, received more than a single volume. 1 The 
English merchantman sailed everywhere. There were 
commercial treaties with Brittany, Burgundy, Portu- 
gal, Castile, Genoa, and Venice. English merchants 
who traded with Prussia were empowered by Henry 
IV. to meet together and elect a governor for the ad- 

1 Especially Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce. 



PLANTAGENET 



191 



justment of quarrels and the reparation of injuries. 
The same privilege was extended to those who traded 
with Holland, Zealand, Brabant, Flanders, Norway, 
Sweden, and Denmark. The Hanseatic merchants en- 
joyed the privileges on the condition — not always 
obtained — that English merchants should have the 
same rights as the Hanseatic League. It is easy to un- 





GERRAKD S HALL. 



derstand what commodities were imported from these 
countries. The trade was carried on under the condi- 
tions of continued fighting. First the seas swarmed 
with Scotch ; French and Flemish ships were always 
on the lookout for English merchant vessels — there 
was no peace on the water. Then there were English 
pirates known as rovers of the sea, who sailed about, 
landing on the coasts, pillaging small towns, and rob- 
bing farms. Sandwich was burned, Southampton was 
burned. London protected herself with booms and 
chains. The merchant vessels for safety sailed in 



192 LONDON 

fleets. Again, it was sometimes dangerous to be resi- 
dent in a foreign town in time of war; in 1429 Bergen 
was destroyed by the Danes, and the English mer- 
chants were massacred ; about the same time English 
seamen ravaged Ireland and murdered the Royal Bail- 
iff ; reprisals and quarrels and claims were constantly 
going on. Yet trade increased, and wealth with it. 
Other foreign merchants settled in London besides 
the Hansards. Florentines came to buy wool, and to 
lend money, and to sell chains and rings and jewelled 
work. Genoese came to buy alum and woad and to 
sell weapons. Venetians came to sell spices, drugs, 
and fine manufactured things. 

The grete galleys of Veness and Fflorence 

Be wel ladene with thynges of complacence, 

All spicerye and of groceres ware, 

Wyth swete wynes alle manere of cheffare. 

Apes and japes and marmettes taylede, 

Trifles — trifles, that lytel have avaylede. 

And thynges with wyche they fetely blere our eye, 

With thynges not enduring that we bye. 

Ffor moche of thys cheffare that is wastable, 

Myght be forebore for diere and dissevable. 

Towards the end of the fourteenth century began 
the first grumblings of the great religious storm that 
was to burst upon the world a hundred years later. 
The common sort of Londoners, attached to their 
Church and to its services, were as yet profoundly or- 
thodox and unquestioning. But it is certain that in 
the year 1393 the Archbishop of York complained for- 
mally to the king of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sher- 
iffs — Whittington was then one of the Sheriffs — that 
they were male creduli, that is, of little faith ; uphold- 



PLANTAGENET 193 

ers of Lollards, detractors of religious persons, detain- 
ers of tithes, and defrauders of the poor. When per- 
secutions, however, began in earnest, not a single 
citizen of position was charged with heresy. Proba- 
bly the Archbishop's charge was based upon some 
quarrel over tithes and Church dues. At the same 
time, no one who has read Chaucer can fail to under- 
stand that men's minds were made uneasy by the 
scandals of religion, the contrast between profession 
and practice. It required no knowledge of theology 
to remark that the monk who kept the best of horses 
in his stable and the best of hounds in his kennel, and 
rode to the chase as gallantly attired as any young 
knight, was a strange follower of the Benedictine rule. 
Nor was it necessary to be a divine in order to com- 
pare the lives of the Franciscans with their vows. 
Yet the authority of the Church seemed undiminished, 
while its wealth, its estates, its rank, and its privileges 
gave it enormous power. It is not pretended that 
the merchants of London were desirous of new doc- 
trines, or of any tampering with the mass, or any low- 
ering of sacerdotal pretensions. Yet there can be no 
doubt that they desired reform in some shape, and it 
seems as if they saw the best hope of reform in rais- 
ing the standard of education. Probably the old 
monastery schools had fallen into decay. We find, 
for instance, a simultaneous movement in this direc- 
tion long before Henry VI. began to found and to 
endow his schools. Whittington bequeathed a sum 
of money to create a library for the Grey Friars ; his 
close friend and one of his executors, John Carpenter, 
Rector of St. Mary Magdalen, founded the City of 
London School, now more flourishing and of greater 
13 



194 



LONDON 



use than ever; another friend of Whittington, Sir 
John Nicol, Master of the College of St. Thomas 
Aeon, petitioned the Parliament for leave to establish 
four schools ; Whittington's own company, the Mer- 
cers, founded a school — which still exists — upon his 
death. The merchants rebuilt churches, bought ad- 
vowsons and gave them to the corporation, founded 
charities, and left doctrine to scholars. Yet the cen- 
tury which contains such men as Wycliff, Chaucer, 
Gower, Occleve, William of Wykeham, Fabian, and 
others, was not altogether one of blind and unques- 
tioning obedience. And it is worthy of remark that 
the first Master of Whittington's Hospital was that 
Reginald Pecock who afterwards, as Bishop of Chi- 
chester, was charged with Lollardism, and imprisoned 
for life as a punishment. He was kept in a single 
closed chamber in Thorney Abbey, Isle of Ely. He 
was never allowed out of this room ; no one was to 
speak with him except the man who waited upon him ; 
he was to have neither paper, pen, ink, or books, ex- 
cept a Bible, a mass-book, a psalter, and a legendary. 

Among the city worthies of that time may be in- 
troduced Sir William Walworth, the slayer of Jack 
Cade ; Sir William Sevenoke, the first known instance 
of the poor country lad of humble birth working his 
way to the front ; he was also the first to found and 
endow a grammar-school for his native town ; Sir Rob- 
ert Chichele, whose brother Henry was Archbishop 
of Canterbury and founder of All Souls', Oxford ; this 
Robert, whose house was on the site of Bakers' Hall 
in Harp Lane, provided by his will that on his com- 
memoration day two thousand four hundred poor 
householders of the city should be regaled with a din- 



PLANTAGENET 



I 9 7 



ner and have twopence in money; Sir John Rainwell, 
who left houses and lands to discharge the tax called 
the Fifteenth in three parishes; Sir John Wells, who 
brought water from Tyburn ; and Sir William Est- 
field, who brought water from Highbury. Other ex- 
amples show that the time for endowing monasteries 
had passed away. When William Elsing, early in the 
fourteenth century, thought of doing something with 
his money, he did 
not leave it to 
the Franciscans 
for masses, but he 
endowed a hospi- 
tal for a hundred 
blind men; and 
a few years later 
John Barnes gave 
the city a strong 
box with three 
locks, containing 
a thousand marks, 
which were to be 
lent to young 
men beginning 

business — an excellent gift. When there was a great 
dearth of grain, it was the Lord Mayor who fitted 
out ships at his own expense and brought corn from 
Prussia, which lowered the price of flower by one- 
half. In the acts of these grave magistrates one can 
read the deep love they bore to the City, their ear- 
nest striving for the administration with justice of 
just laws, for the maintenance of good work, for the 
relief of the poor, for the provision of water, and for 




THE THAMES FRONT, A.D. 1540 



198 LONDON 

education. Lollardism was nothing to them. What 
concerned them in religion was the luxury, the sloth, 
and the scandalous lives of the religious. Order they 
loved, because it is only by the maintenance of order 
that a city can flourish. Honesty in work of all kinds 
they loved, so that while they hated the man who 
pretended to do true work and proffered false work, 
it grieved and shamed them to see one who professed 
the life of purity wallow in wickedness, like a hog in 
mud. Obedience they required, because without obe- 
dience there is no government. As for the working- 
man, the producer, the servant, having any share in 
the profits or any claim to payment beyond his wage, 
such a thought never entered the head of Whitting- 
ton or Sevenoke. They were rulers ; they were mas- 
ters ; they paid the wage ; they laid their hands upon 
the profits. 

Tradition — which is always on the side of the weak 
— maintains that the great merchants of the past, for 
the most part, made their way upward from the poor- 
est and most penniless conditions. They came from 
the plough-tail or from the mechanic's shop ; they en- 
tered the city paved with gold, friendless, with no 
more than twopence, if so much, in their pockets ; 
they received scant favor and put up with rough fare. 
Then tradition makes a jump, and shows them, on 
the next lifting of the curtain, prosperous, rich, and in 
great honor. The typical London merchant is Dick 
Whittington, whose history was blazoned in the cheap 
books for all to read. One is loath to disturb venera- 
ble beliefs, but the facts of history are exactly the 
opposite. The merchant adventurer, diligent in his 
business, and therefore rewarded, as the wise man 



PLANTAGENET 199 

prophesied for him, by standing before princes, though 
he began life as a prentice, also began it as a gentle- 
man. He belonged, at the outset, to a good family, 
and had good friends both in the country and the 
town. Piers Plowman never could and never did rise 
to great eminence in the city. The exceptions, which 
are few indeed, prove the rule. Against such a case 
as Sevenoke, the son of poor parents, who rose to be 
Lord Mayor, we have a hundred others in which the 
successful merchant starts with the advantage of gen- 
tle birth. Take, for example, the case of Whitting- 
ton himself. 

He was the younger son of a Gloucestershire coun- 
try gentleman, Sir William Whittington, a knight who 
was outlawed for some offence. His estate was at a 
village called Pauntley. In the church may still be 
seen the shield of Whittington impaling Fitzwarren — 
Richard's wife was Alice Fitzwarren. His mother 
belonged to the well-known Devonshire family of 
Mansell, and was a cousin of the Fitzwarrens. The 
Whittingtons were thus people of position and con- 
sideration, of knightly rank, armigeri, living on their 
own estates, which were sufficient but not large. 

For a younger son in the fourteenth century the 
choice of a career was limited. He might enter the 
service of a great lord and follow his fortunes. In 
that turbulent time there was fighting to be had at 
home as well as in France, and honor to be acquired, 
with rank and lands, by those who were fortunate. 
He might join the livery of the king. He might 
enter the Church : but youths of gentle blood did not 
in the fourteenth century flock readily to the Church. 
He might remain on the family estate and become a 



200 LONDON 

bailiff. He might go up to London and become a 
lawyer. There were none of the modern professions — 
no engineers, architects, bankers, journalists, painters, 
novelists, or dramatists ; but there was trade. 

Young Dick Whittington therefore chose to follow 
trade ; rather that line of life was chosen for him. He 
was sent to London under charge of carriers, and 
placed in the house of his cousin, Sir John Fitzwarren, 
also a gentleman before he was a merchant, as an ap- 
prentice. As he married his master's daughter, it is 
reasonable to suppose that he inherited a business, 
which he subsequently improved and developed enor- 
mously. If we suppose a single man to be the owner 
of the Cunard Line of steamers, running the cargoes 
on his own venture and for his own profit, we may 
understand something of Whittington's position in 
the city. The story of the cat is persistently at- 
tached to his name ; it begins immediately after his 
death ; it was figured on the buildings which his ex- 
ecutors erected; it formed part of the decorations of 
the family mansion at Gloucester. It is therefore im- 
possible to avoid the conclusion that he did himself 
associate the sale of a cat — then a creature of some 
value and rarity — with the foundation of his fortunes. 
Here, however, we have only to do with the fact that 
Whittington was of gentle birth, and that he was ap- 
prenticed to a man also of gentle birth. 

Here, again, is another proof of my assertion that 
the London merchant was generally a gentleman. 
That good old antiquary, Stow, to whom we owe so 
much, not only gives an account of all the monuments 
in the city churches, with the inscriptions and verses 
which were graven upon them, but he also describes 



PLANTAGENET 203 

the shields of all those who were armigeri — entitled to 
carry arms. Remember that a shield was not a thing 
which could in those days be assumed at pleasure. 
The Heralds made visitations of the counties, and ex- 
amined into the pretensions of every man who bore a 
coat of arms. You were either entitled to a coat of 
arms or you were not. To parade a shield without a 
proper title was much as if a man should in these 
days pretend to be an Earl or a Baronet. If one 
wants a shield it is only necessary now to invent one ; 
or the Heralds' College will with great readiness con- 
nect a man with some knightly family and so confer 
a title : formerly the Herald could only invent or find 
a coat of arms by order of the Sovereign, the Fount- 
ain of Honor. By granting a shield, let us remember, 
the king admitted another family into the first rank 
of gentlehood. For instance, when the news of Cap- 
tain Cook's death reached England, King George III. 
granted a coat of arms to his family, who were there- 
by promoted to the first stage of nobility. This, 
however, seems to have been the last occasion of such 
a grant. 

What do we find, then ? This very remarkable 
fact. The churches are full of monuments to dead 
citizens who are armigeri. Take two churches at 
hazard. The first is St. Leonard's, Milk Street. Here 
were buried, among others, John Johnson, citizen and 
butcher, died 1282, his coat of arms displayed upon 
his tomb; also, with his family shield, Richard Ruye- 
ner, citizen and fish-monger, died 1 36 1. The second 
church is St. Peter's, Cornhill. Here the following 
monuments have their shields: that of Thomas Lori- 
mer, citizen and mercer; of Thomas Born, citizen and 



204 LONDON 

draper; of Henry Acle, citizen and grocer; of Henry 
Palmer, citizen and pannarius ; of Henry Aubertner, 
citizen and tailor; and of Timothy Westrow, citizen 
and grocer. In short, I do not say that the retail 
traders were of knightly family, but that the great 
merchants, the mercers, adventurers, and leaders of 
the Companies were gentlemen by descent, and ad- 
mitted to their close society only their own friends, 
cousins, and sons. 

The residence and yearly influx of the Barons and 
their followers into London not only, as we have seen, 
kept the city in touch with the country, and pre- 
vented it from becoming a mere centre of trade, but 
it also kept the country in touch with the City. The 
livery of the great Lords compared their own lot, at 
best an honorable servitude, with that of the free and 
independent merchants who had no over-lord but the 
King, and were themselves as rich as any of the 
greatest Barons in the country. They saw among 
them many from their own country, lads whom they 
remembered in the hunting- field, or playing in the 
garden before the timbered old house in the country, 
of gentle birth and breeding; once, like themselves, 
poor younger sons, now rich and of great respect. 
When they went home they talked of this, and fired 
the blood of the boys, so that while some stayed at 
home and some put on the livery of a Baron, others 
went up to London and served their time. So that, 
when we assign a city origin to the families of Cov- 
entry, Leigh, Ducie, Pole, Bouverie, Boleyn, Legge, 
Capel, Osborne, Craven, and Ward, it would be well 
to inquire, if possible, to what stock belonged the 
original citizen, the founder of each. Trade in the 



PLANTAGENET 205 

fourteenth century, and long afterwards, did not de- 
grade a gentleman. That idea was of an earlier and 
of a later date. It became a law during the last cen- 
tury, when the county families began to grow rich 
and the value of land increased. It is fast disappear- 
ing again, and the city is once more receiving the 
sons of noble and gentle. The change should be 
welcomed as helping to destroy the German notions 
of caste and class and the hereditary superiority of 
the ennobled House. 

As for the political power of London under the 
Plantagenets, it will be sufficient to refer to Froissart. 
" The English," says the chronicler, unkindly, " are the 
worst people in the world, the most obstinate, and the 
most presumptuous, and of all England the London- 
ers are the leaders ; for, to say the truth, they are 
very powerful in men and in wealth. In the city and 
neighborhood there are 25,000 men, completely armed 
from head to foot, and full 30,000 archers. This is a 
great force, and they are bold and courageous, and the 
more blood is spilled the greater is their courage." 
The deposition of King Edward II. and that of King 
Richard II. illustrate at once the "presumption and 
obstinacy" and the power of the citizens. Later on, 
the depositions of Charles I. and of James II. were 
also largely assisted by these presumptuous citizens. 

The first case, that of Edward II., is thus summed 
up by Froissart : 

When the Londoners perceived King Edward so besotted 
with the Despencers, they provided a remedy, by sending se- 
cretly to Queen Isabella information, that if she would collect 
a body of 300 armed men, and land with them in England, she 
would find the citizens of London and the majority of the no- 



206 LONDON 

bles and commonalty ready to join her and place her on the 
throne. The Queen found a friend in Sir John of Hainault, 
Lord of Beaumont and Chimay, and brother to Count William 
of Hainault, who undertook, through affection and pity, to car- 
ry her and her son back to England. He exerted himself so 
much in her service with knights and squires, that he collected 
a body of 400 and landed them in England, to the great com- 
fort of the Londoners. The citizens joined them, for, without 
their assistance, they would never have accomplished the en- 
terprise. King Edward was made prisoner at Bristol, and car- 
ried to Berkeley Castle, where he died. His advisers were all 
put to death with much cruelty, and the same day King Ed- 
ward III. was crowned King of England in the Palace of West- 
minster. 

When, in the case of Richard II., the time of ex- 
postulation had passed, and that for armed resistance 
or passive submission had arrived, the Londoners re- 
membered their action in the reign of Edward II., 
and perceived that if they did not move they would 
be all ruined and destroyed. They therefore resolved 
upon bringing over from France, Henry, Earl of Der- 
by, and entreated the Archbishop of Canterbury to 
go over secretly and invite him, promising the whole 
strength of London for his service. As we know, 
Henry accepted and came over. On his landing he 
sent a special messenger to ride post haste to London 
with the news. The journey was performed in less 
than twenty-four hours. The Lord Mayor sent the 
news about in all directions, and the Londoners pre- 
pared to give their future king a right joyous welcome. 
They poured out along the roads to meet him, and all 
men, women, and children clad in their best clothes. 
" The Mayor of London rode by the side of the Earl, 
and said, ' See, my Lord, how much the people are 



PLANTAGENET 207 

rejoiced at your arrival.' As the Earl advanced, he 
bowed his head to the right and left, and noticed all 
comers with kindness. . . . The whole town was so re- 
joiced at the Earl's return that every shop was shut 
and no more work done than if it had been Easter Day." 

The army which Henry led to the west was an 
army of Londoners, twelve thousand strong. It was 
to the Tower of London that the fallen King was 
brought ; and it was in the Guildhall that the articles 
drawn up against the King were publicly read ; and it 
was in Cheapside that the four knights, Richard's 
principal advisers, were beheaded. At the Coronation 
feast the King sat at the first table, having with him 
the two archbishops and seventeen bishops. At the 
second table sat the five great peers of England. At 
the third were the principal citizens of London ; be- 
low them sat the knights. The place assigned to the 
city is significant. But London had not yet done 
enough for Henry of Lancaster. The Earls of Hunt- 
ingdon and Salisbury attempted a rebellion against 
him. Said the Mayor, " Sire, we have made you king, 
and king you shall be." And King he remained. 

It was in this fourteenth century that the city ex- 
perienced the most important change in the whole 
history of her constitution, more important than the 
substitution of the Mayor and Aldermen for the port- 
reeve and sheriff, though that was nothing less than 
the passage from the feudal county to the civic com- 
munity. The new thing was the formation of the 
city companies, which incorporated each trade formal- 
ly, and gave the fullest powers to the governing body 
over wages, hours of labor, output, and everything 
which concerned the welfare of each craft. 



208 LONDON 

There had been many attempts made at combina- 
tion. Men at all times have been sensible of the ad- 
vantages of combining ; at all times and in every trade 
there is the same difficulty, that of persuading every- 
body to forego an apparent present advantage for a 
certain benefit in the future ; there are always black- 
legs, yet the cause of combination advances. 

The history of the city companies is that of combi- 
nation so successfully carried out that it became part 
of the constitution and government of the city ; but, 
which was not foreseen at the outset, combination in 
the interests of the masters, not of the men. 

The trades had long formed associations which they 
called guilds. These, for some appearance of inde- 
pendence, began to arouse suspicion. Kings have 
never regarded any combination of their subjects with 
approbation. The guilds were ostensibly religious ; 
they had each a patron saint — St. Martin, for instance, 
protected the saddlers ; St. Anthony, the grocers — 
and they held an annual festival on their saint's day. 
But they must be licensed ; eighteen such guilds were 
fined for establishing themselves without a license. 
Those which were licensed paid for the privilege. 
The most important of them was the Guild of Weav- 
ers, which was authorized by Henry II. to regulate 
the trades of cloth-workers, drapers, tailors, and all 
the various crafts and " mysteries " that belong to 
clothes. This guild became so powerful that it threat- 
ened to rival in authority the governing body. It 
was therefore suppressed by King John, the different 
trades afterwards combining separately to form their 
own companies. 

We are not writing a history of London, otherwise 



PLANTAGENET 209 

the rise and growth of the City companies would form 
a most interesting chapter. It has been done in a 
brief and convenient form by Loftie, in his little book 
on London {Historic Towns Series). Very curious and 
suggestive reading it is. At the period with which 
we are now concerned, the end of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, the companies were rapidly forming and present- 
ing regulations for the approval and license of the 
Mayor and Aldermen. By the year 1363 there were 
thirty-two companies already formed whose laws and 
regulations had received the approbation of the King. 
Let us take those of the Company of Glovers. They 
are briefly as follows : 

(1) None but a freeman of the City shall make or 
sell gloves. 

(2) No glover shall be admitted to the freedom of 
the City unless with the assent of the Wardens of the 
trade. 

(3) No one shall entice away the servant of an- 
other. 

(4) If a servant in the trade shall make away with 
his master's chattels to the value of twelvepence, the 
Wardens shall make good the loss ; and if the servant 
refuse to be adjudged upon by the Wardens, he shall 
be taken before the Mayor and Aldermen. 

(5) No one shall sell his goods by candlelight. 

(6) Any false work found shall be taken before the 
Mayor and Aldermen by the Wardens. 

(7) All things touching the trade within the City be- 
tween those who are not freemen shall be forfeited. 

(8) Journeymen shall be paid their present rate of 
wages. 

(9) Persons who entice away journeymen glovers to 
14 



2IO LONDON 

make gloves in their own houses shall be brought be- 
fore the Mayor and Aldermen. 

(10) Any one of the trade who refuses to obey these 
regulations shall be brought before the Mayor and 
Aldermen. 

Observe, upon these laws, first, that the fourth sim- 
ply transfers the master's right to chastise his servant 
to the governing body of the company. This seems 
to put the craftsmen in a better position. Here, ap- 
parently, is combination carried to the fullest. All 
the glovers in the City unite ; no one shall make or 
sell gloves except their own members; the company 
shall order the rate of wages and the admission of ap- 
prentices ; no glover shall work for private persons, or 
for any one, except by order of the company. Here 
is absolute protection of trade and absolute command 
of trade. Unfortunately, the Wardens and court were 
not the craftsmen, but the masters. Therefore the 
regulations of trade were very quickly found to serve 
the enrichment of the masters and the repression of 
the craftsmen. And if the latter formed " covins " 
or conspiracies for the improvement of wages, they 
very soon found out that such associations were put 
down with the firmest hand. To be brought before 
the Mayor and Aldermen meant, unless submission 
was made and accepted, expulsion from the City. So 
long as the conditions of the time allowed, the com- 
panies created a Paradise for the master. The work- 
man was suppressed ; he could not combine ; he could 
not live except on the terms imposed by his com- 
pany : if he rebelled he was thrust out of the City 
gates. The jurisdiction of the City, however, ceased 
at the walls ; when a greater London began to grow 



PLANTAGENET 211 

outside Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Aldgate, and 
on the reclaimed marshes of Westminster and along 
the river-bank, craftsmen not of any company could 
settle down and work as they please. But they had 
to find a market, which might be impossible except 
within the City, where they were not admitted. There- 
fore the companies, as active guardians and jealous 
promoters of their trades, fulfilled their original pur- 
poses a long while, and enabled many generations of 
masters to grow rich upon the work of their servants. 

Every company was governed by its Wardens. The 
Warden had great powers ; he proved the quality, 
weight, or length of the goods exposed for sale ; the 
members were bound to obey the Warden ; to pre- 
vent bad blood, every man called upon to serve his 
time as Warden had to undertake the office. The 
Warden also looked after the poor of the craft, as- 
sisted the old and infirm, the widows and the orphans. 
He had also to watch over the fraternity, to take care 
that there should be no underselling, no infringement 
of the rate of wage, no overreaching of one by the 
other. He was, in short, to maintain the common in- 
terest of the trade. It was a despotism, but, on the 
whole, a benevolent despotism. The Englishman was 
not yet ready for popular rule ; doubtless the jealous- 
ies of the sovereign were allayed by the discovery that 
the association of a trade was a potent engine for the 
maintenance of order and the repression of the turbu- 
lent craftsman. How turbulent they could be was 
proved by the troubles which arose in the reign of 
Henry III. 

The great companies were always separate and dis- 
tinct from the smaller companies. For a long time 



212 LONDON 

the Mayor was exclusively elected from the former. 
Even at the present day, unless the Mayor belongs to 
one of the great companies, he labors under certain 
disadvantages. He cannot, for instance, become Presi- 
dent of the Irish Society. 

By the end of the fourteenth century, then — to sum 
up — the government of London was practically com- 
plete and almost in its present form. The Mayor, be- 
come an officer of the highest importance, was elected 
every year; the Sheriffs every year; the Aldermen 
and the Common Councilmen were elected by wards. 
The Mayor was chosen from the great companies, 
which comprised all the merchant venturers, import- 
ers, exporters, men who had correspondence over the 
seas, masters, and employers. Every craft had its own 
regulations ; no one could trade in the City who did 
not belong to a company ; no one could work in the 
City, or even make anything to be sold, who did not 
belong to a company. Wages were ordered by the 
companies; working-men had no appeal from the 
ruling of the Warden. From time to time there were 
attempts made by the craftsmen to make combina- 
tions for themselves. These attempts were sternly 
and swiftly put down. No trades -unions were suf- 
fered to be formed ; nay, even within the memory of 
living man trades-unions were treated as illegal asso- 
ciations. The craftsman, as a political factor, disap- 
pears from history with the creation of the companies. 
In earlier times we hear his voice in the folkmote ; 
we see him tossing his cap and shouting for William 
Longbeard. But when Whittington sits on the Lord 
Mayor's chair he is silenced. And he remains silent 
until, by a renewal of those covins and conspiracies 



PLANTAGENET 213 

which Whittington put down so sternly, he has be- 
come a greater power in the land than ever he was 
before. Even yet, however, and with all the lessons 
that he has learned, his power of combination is im- 
perfect, his aims are narrow, and his grasp of his own 
power is feeble and restricted. 

For my own part, I confess that this repression, this 
silencing of the craftsman in the fourteenth century, 
seems to me to have been necessary for the growth 
and prosperity of the City. For the craftsman was 
then incredibly ignorant ; he knew nothing except 
his own craft ; as for his country, the conditions of 
the time, the outer world, he knew nothing at all ; 
he might talk to the sailors who lay about the quays 
between voyages, but they could tell him nothing 
that would help him in his trade ; he could not read, 
he could not inquire, because he knew not what ques- 
tion to ask or what information he wanted ; he had 
no principles ; he was naturally ready, for his own 
present advantages, to sacrifice the whole world ; he 
believed all he was told. Had the London working- 
man acquired such a share in the government of his 
city as he now has in the government of his country, 
the result would have been a battle-field of discordant 
and ever-varying factions, ruled and led each in turn 
by a short-lived demagogue. 

It was, in short, a most happy circumstance for 
London that the government of the City fell into the 
hands of an oligarchy, and still more happy that the 
oligarchs themselves were under the rule of a jealous 
and a watchful sovereign. 

So far it was well. It would have been better had 
the governing body recognized the law that they 



214 



LONDON 



must be always enlarging their borders. Then they 
would have begun in earnest the education of the 
people. We, who have only taken this work in hand 
for twenty years, may not throw stones. The voice 
of the educated craftsman should have been heard 
long ago. Then we might have been spared many 
oppressions, many foolish wars, many cruelties. But 
from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century the 
craftsman is silent. Nay, in every generation he 
grows more silent, less able to say what he wants ; 
more inarticulate, more angry and discontented, and 
more powerless to make his wants heard until he 
reaches the lowest depth ever arrived at by English- 
men ; and that, I think, was about a hundred years 
ago. 



PLANTAGENET 21 5 



V 

PLANTAGENET 
III. THE PEOPLE 

THROUGH broad Chepeside rode the great lord 
— haply the King himself — followed by his regi- 
ment of knights, gentlemen, and men-at-arms, all wear- 
ing his livery. The Abbot, with his following, passed 
along on his way to Westminster in stately proces- 
sion. The Alderman, in fur gown and gold chain, 
with his officers, walked through the market inspect- 
ing weights and measures and the goods exposed for 
sale. Priests and friars crowded the narrow ways. 
To north and south, in sheds which served for shops, 
the prentices stood bawling their wares. This was 
the outward and visible side of the City. There was 
another side — the City of the London craftsman. 

Who was he — the craftsman ? Whence did he 
come ? London has always opened her hospitable 
arms to foreigners. They still come to the City and 
settle, enjoying its freedom, and in the next genera- 
tion are pure English. In the days of Edward the 
Confessor the men of Rouen and of Flanders became 
citizens with rights equal to the English. Later on, 
the names of the people show their origin and the 



2l6 



LONDON 



places whence they or their forefathers had come. 
Then William Waleys is William the Welchman ; 
Walter Norris is Walter of Norway ; John Francis is 
John the Frenchman ; Henry Upton is Henry of that 
town; William Sevenoke, Lord Mayor of London, 
took his name from the village 
of Sevenoaks, in Kent, where 
he was born. The first sur- 
names were bestowed not only 
with reference to the place of 
birth, but partly to trades, part- 
ly to the place of residence, 
partly to personal defects or 
peculiarities. But it is obvious 
from the earliest names on rec- 
ord how readily London re- 
ceived strangers from any quar- 
ter of western Europe, Norway, 
Denmark, Flanders, Lorraine, 
Picardy, Normandy, Guyenne, 
Spain, Provence, and Italy. It 
is noteworthy in studying the 
names, first, that, as was to be 
expected, there is not in the fourteenth century a 
single trace of British or Roman-British name, either 
Christian or surname, just as there was not in the 
Saxon occupation a single trace of Roman customs 
or institutions ; next, that the Saxon names have all 
vanished. There are no longer any Wilfreds, ^Elf- 
gars, Eadberhts, Sigeberts, Harolds, or Eadgars among 
the Christian names. They have given place to the 
Norman names of John, Henry, William, and the like. 
The London craftsman was therefore a compound of 




OLD CHARING CROSS 



PLANTAGENET 2\J 

many races. The dominant strain was Saxon — East 
Saxon ; then came Norman, then Fleming, and then a 
slight infusion of every nation of Western Europe. 

In the narrow lanes leading north and south of the 
two great streets of Thames and Chepe the craftsmen 
of London lived in their tenements, each consisting of 
a room below and a room above. Some of them fol- 
lowed their trade at home, some worked in shops. 
There were those who sold and those who made. Of 
the former, the mercers and haberdashers kept their 
shops in West Chepe ; the goldsmiths in Guthrun's 
Lane and Old Change ; the pepperers and grocers in 
Soper's Lane; the drapers in Lombard Street and 
Cornhill ; the skinners in St. Mary Axe ; the fish- 
mongers in Thames Street ; the iron-mongers in Iron- 
mongers' Lane and Old Jewry; the vintners in the 
Vintry ; the butchers in East Chepe, St. Nicolas 
Shambles, and the Stocks Market ; the hosiers in 
Hosiers' Lane ; the shoemakers and curriers in Cord- 
wainer Street ; the paternoster- sellers in Paternoster 
Row ; patten-sellers by St. Margaret Pattens ; and so 
forth. 

It is easy, with the help of Stow, and with the 
names of the streets before one, to map out the chief 
market-places and the shops. It is not so easy to lay 
down the places where those dwelt who carried on 
handicrafts. Stow indicates here and there a few 
facts. The Founders of candlesticks, chafing-dishes, 
and spice mortars carried on their work in Lothbury ; 
the coal-men and wood-mongers were found about 
Billingsgate stairs ; since the Flemish weavers met in 
the church -yard of Lawrence Pountney, they lived 
presumably in that parish. For the same reason the 



2l8 LONDON 

Brabant weavers probably lived in St. Mary Somerset 
parish. The furriers worked in Walbrook ; the cur- 
riers opposite London Wall ; upholsterers or under- 
takers on Cornhill ; cutlers worked in Pope's Head 
Alley; basket -makers, wire-drawers, and "other for- 
eigners " in Blond Chapel, or Blanch Appletone Lane. 
In Mincing Lane dwelt the men of Genoa and other 
parts who brought wine to the port of London in their 
galleys. The turners of beads for prayers lived in Pa- 
ternoster Row ; the bowyers in Bowyer Row ; other 
crafts there are which may be assigned to their origi- 
nal streets. Sometimes, but not always, the site of a 
company's hall marks the quarter chiefly inhabited 
by that trade. Certainly the vintners belonged to the 
Vintry, where is now their hall, and the weavers to 
Chepe, where they still have their hall. When, how- 
ever, the management of a trade or craft passed into 
the hands of a company, there was no longer any rea- 
son, except where men had to work together, why 
they should live together. Since there could be no 
combined action by the men, but, on the contrary, 
blind obedience to the Warden, they might as well 
live in whatever part of the City should be the most 
convenient. From the absence of great houses, wheth- 
er of nobles or princes, in the north of the City, one is 
inclined to believe that great numbers of craftsmen 
lived in that part, namely, between what is now called 
Gresham Street and London Wall. 

The trades carried on within the walls covered very 
nearly the whole field of manufacture. A mediaeval 
city made everything that it wanted — wine, spices, 
silks, velvets, precious stones, and a few other things 
excepted, which were brought to the port from abroad ; 



PLANTAGENET 219 

but the City could get on very well without those 
things. Within the walls they made everything. It 
is not until one reads the long lists of trades collected 
together by Riley that one understands how many 
things were wanted, and how trades were subdivided. 
Clothing in its various branches gave work to the 
wympler, who made wimples or neckerchiefs for wom- 
en ; the retunder, or shearman of cloth ; the batour, 
or worker of cloth ; the caplet-monger ; the callere, 
who made cauls or coifs for the head ; the quilter; the 
pinner ; the chaloner, who made chalons or coverlets ; 
the bureller, who worked in burel, a coarse cloth ; the 
tailor; the linen armorer; the chaucer, or shoemaker; 
the plumer, or feather-worker ; the pelliper, pellercer, 
or furrier ; the white tawyer, who made white leather ; 
and many others. Arms and armor wanted the bow- 
yer; the kissere, who made armor for the thighs; the 
bokelsmyth, who make bucklers ; the bracere, who 
made armor for arms ; the gorgiarius, who made gor- 
gets ; the taborer, who made drums ; the heaulmere, 
who made helmets ; the makers of haketons, pikes, 
swords, spears, and bolts for crossbows. Trades were 
thus already divided ; we see one man making one 
thing and nothing else all his life. The equyler made 
porringers, the brochere made spits, the haltier made 
halters, the corder made ropes, the sacker made sacks, 
the melmallere made hammers, and so on. 

The old City grows gradually clearer to the vision 
when we think of all these trades carried on within 
the walls. There were mills to grind the corn ; brew- 
eries for making the beer — one remains in the City 
still ; the linen was spun within the walls, and the 
cloth made and dressed ; the brass pots, tin pots, iron 



220 LONDON 

utensils, and wooden platters and basins were all made 
in the City ; the armor, with its various pieces, was 
hammered out and fashioned in the streets ; all kinds 
of clothes, from the leathern jerkin of the poorest to 
the embroidered robes of a princess, were made here ; 
nothing that was wanted for household use in the 
country but was made in London town. Some of 
those trades were offensive to their neighbors. Under 
Edward I., for instance, the melters of tallow and lard 
were made to leave Chepe, and to find a more con- 
venient place at a distance from that fashionable 
street. The names of Stinking Lane, Scalding Lane, 
and Sheer Hog sufficiently indicate the pleasing effect 
of the things done in them upon the neighbors. The 
modern City of London — the City proper — is a place 
where they make nothing, but sell everything. It is 
now quite a quiet city ; the old rumbling of broad- 
wheeled wagons over a stone-laid roadway has given 
way to the roll of the narrow wheel over the smooth 
asphalt ; the craftsmen have left the City. But in the 
days of Whittington there was no noiser city in the 
whole world ; the roar and the racket of it could be 
heard afar off — even at the rising of the Surrey Hills 
or the slope of Highgate, or the top of Parliament 
Hill. Every man in the City was at work except the 
lazy men-at-arms of my lord's following in the great 
house that was like a barrack. They lay about wait- 
ing for the order to mount and ride off to the border, 
or the Welsh march, or to fight the French. But 
roundabout these barracks the busy craftsmen worked 
all day long. From every lane rang out without ceas- 
ing the tuneful note of the hammer and the anvil ; 
the carpenters, not without noise, drove in their nails, 



PLANTAGENET 221 

and the coopers hooped their casks; the blacksmith's 
fire roared ; the harsh grating of the founders set the 
teeth on edge of those who passed that way ; along 
the river-bank, from the Tower to Paul's stairs, those 
who loaded and those who unloaded, those who car- 
ried the bales to the warehouses, those who hoisted 
them up, the ships which came to port and the ships 
which sailed away, did all with fierce talking, shouting, 
quarrelling, and racket. Such work must needs be 
carried on with noise. The pack-horses plodded along 
the streets, coming into the City and going out. Wag- 
ons with broad wheels rumbled and groaned along; 
the prentices bawled from the shops ; the fighting- 
men marched along to sound of trumpet; the church 
bells and the monastery bells rang out all day long, 
and all night too. And at the doors of the houses or 
the open windows, where there was no glass, but a 
hanging shutter, sat or stood the women, preparing 
the food, washing, mending, sewing, or spinning, their 
children playing in the street before them. There are 
many towns of France, especially Southern France, 
which recall the mediaeval city. Here the women live 
and do their work in the door-ways; the men work at 
the open windows ; and all day there is wafted along 
the streets and up to the skies the fragrance of soup 
and onions, roasted meats and baked confections, with 
the smell of every trade which the people carry on. 

Everything was made within the walls of the City. 
When one thinks upon the melting of tallow, the boil- 
ing of soap, the crushing of bones, the extracting of 
glue, the treatment of feathers and cloth and leather, 
the making and grinding of knives and all other sharp 
weapons, the crowding of the slaughter-houses, the 



222 LONDON 

decaying of fruit and vegetables, the roasting of meat 
at cooks' shops, the baking of bread, the brewing of 
beer, the making of vinegar, and all the thousand and 
one things which go to make up the life of a town, 
the most offensive of which are now carried on with- 
out the town ; when one considers, further, the gut- 
ter, which played so great a part in every mediaeval 
city ; the gutter stream, which was almost Sabbatical, 
because it ceased to run when people ceased to work ; 
the brook of the middle of the street, flowing with 
suds, the water used for domestic and for trade pur- 
poses, and with everything that would float or flow; 
when, again, one thinks of the rags and bones, the 
broken bits and remnants and fragments, the cabbage- 
stalks and pea- pods and onion- peelings which were 
thrown into the street, though against the law, and of 
the lay stalls, where filth and refuse of every kind 
were thrown to wait the coming of carts, even more 
uncertain than those of a modern vestry — when, I 
say, one thinks of all these things, and of the small 
boundaries of the City, and its crowded people, and 
of its narrow streets, one understands how there 
hung over the City day and night, never quite blown 
away even by the most terrible storm that ever 
wept o'er pale Britannia, a richly confected cloud of 
thick and heavy smell which the people had to 
breathe. 

They liked it ; without it, the true Londoner lan- 
guished. The mediaeval smell, the smell of great 
towns, has left London, but in old towns of the Con- 
tinent, as in the old streets of Brussels, it meets and 
greets us to the present day. Breathing this air with 
difficulty, and perhaps with nausea, you may say, 



PLANTAGENET 223 

" Such and such was the air in which the citizens of 
London delighted when Edward III. was King." 

The craftsman in those days had to do good work, 
or he would hear of it. He had to obey his company, 
or he would hear of it ; and he had to take, with out- 
ward show of contentment, the wages that were as- 
signed to him, or he would hear of it. He might be 
imprisoned, or put in pillory. We shall see a few 
cases of his punishment presently. As a final punish- 
ment he might be thrust outside the gates of the City, 
and told to go away and to return no more. 

Then, one fears, there would be nothing left for the 
craftsman but to turn riband, if he was clever enough 
to learn the arts of ribanderie ; or to sink into the 
lowest depth and become a villein, bound to the soil. 

If it was a city of hard work, it was also a city of 
play in plenty. London citizens, old and young, have 
always delighted beyond measure in games, shows, 
sports, and amusements of every kind. There were 
many holidays, and Sunday was not a day of gloom. 

The calendar of sport begins with the first day of 
the year, and ends with the last day. 

The year began with New-year's gifts : 

These giftes the husband gives his wife and father eke the 

child, ' 
And master on his men bestows the like with favour milde, 
And good beginning of the year they wish and wish again, 
According to the ancient guise of heathen people vaine. 
These eight days no man doth require his debtes of any man; 
Their tables do they furnish forth with all the meat they can. 

There were skating and sliding upon the ice in 
Moorfields, where the shallow ponds froze easily; or 



224 LONDON 

they played at quarter-staff, at hocking, at single-stick, 
at foot -ball, and at bucklers. In the evening they 
played at cards and " tables " and dice. 

Now men and maids do merry make 
At stool-ball and at barley-break. 

On Shrove Tuesday they had cock-fighting, a sport 
continued with unabated popularity until within the 
memory of man — nay, it is rumored that he who 
knows where to look for it may still enjoy that human- 
izing spectacle. Every Friday in Lent the young 
men went forth to Smithfield and held mock fights, 
but the custom was in time discontinued; at Easter 
they had boat tournaments. At this holy season also 
they had boar fights, and the baiting of bulls and 
bears. They had stage plays — the parish clerk in 
Chaucer " played Herod on a scaffold high." In the 
year 1391 the parish clerks had a play at Skinners 
Well, Smithfield, which lasted for three days. In 
1409 they represented the creation of the world, and 
it lasted eight days. 

Then there were the pageants, shows, and ridings 
in the city. Here are two, out of several described 
by Stow : 

Of triumphant shows made by the citizens of London, ye 
may read, in the year 1236, the 20th of Henry III., Andrew 
Bockwell then being mayor, how Eleanor, daughter to Rey- 
mond, Earl of Provence, riding through the city towards West- 
minster, there to be crowned Queen of England, the city was 
adorned with silks, and in the night with lamps, cressets, and 
other lights without number, besides many pageants and 
strange devices there presented ; the citizens also rode to meet 
the king and queen, clothed in long garments embroidered 
about with gold, and silks of divers colours, their horses gal- 



PLANTAGEx\ET 225 

lantly trapped to the number of three hundred and sixty, every 
man bearing a cup of gold or silver in his hand, and the king's 
trumpeters sounding before them. These citizens did minister 
wine as bottlers, which is their service, at their coronation. 
More, in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I. 
against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several 
trade, made their several show, but especially the fish-mongers, 
which in a solemn procession passed through the city, having, 
amongst other pageants and shows, four sturgeons gilt, carried 
on four horses ; then four salmons of silver on four horses ; 
and after them six-and-forty armed knights riding on horses, 
made like luces of the sea ; and then one representing St. Mag- 
nus, because it was upon St. Magnus' day, with a thousand 
horsemen, &c. 

One other show, in the year 1377, was made by the citizens 
for disport of the young prince, Richard, son to the Black 
Prince, in the feast of Christmas, in this manner : On the Sun- 
day before Candlemas, in the night, one hundred and thirty 
citizens, disguised, and well horsed, in a mummery, with sound 
of trumpets, sackbuts, cornets, shalmes, and other minstrels, 
and innumerable torch - lights of wax, rode from Newgate, 
through Cheap, over the bridge, through Southwark, and so to 
Kennington beside Lambhith, where the young prince re- 
mained with his mother and the Duke of Lancaster his uncle, 
the earls of Cambridge, Hertford, Warwick, and Suffolk, with 
divers other lords. In the first rank did ride forty-eight in the 
likeness and habit of esquires, two and two together, clothed 
in red coats and gowns of say or sandal, with comely visors on 
their faces; after them came riding forty-eight knights in the 
same livery of colour and stuff; then followed one richly ar- 
rayed like an emperor; and after him some distance, one 
stately attired like a pope, whom followed twenty-four cardi- 
nals, and after them eight or ten with black visors, not amiable, 
as if they had been legates from some foreign princes. These 
maskers, after they had entered Kennington, alighted from 
their horses, and entered the hall on foot ; which done, the 
prince, his mother, and the lords, came out of the chamber 
into the hall, whom the said mummers did salute, showing by 

15 



226 LONDON 

a pair of dice upon the table their desire to play with the 
prince, which they so handled that the prince did always win 
when he cast them. Then the mummers set to the prince 
three jewels, one after another, which were a bowl of gold, a 
cup of gold, and a ring of gold, which the prince won at three 
casts. Then they set to the prince's mother, the duke, the 
earls, and other lords, to every one a ring of gold, which they 
did also win. After which they were feasted, and the music 
sounded, the prince and the lords danced on the one part with 
the mummers, which did also dance; which jollity being 
ended, they were again made to drink, and then departed in 
order as they came. 

Whenever an excuse could be found, the Mayor, 
Sheriffs, and Aldermen held a solemn riding in all 
their bravery. Not even in Ghent or Antwerp were 
there such splendid ridings and so many of them. 
"Search all chronicles," says an old writer, "all histo- 
ries and records, in what language or letter soever, let 
the inquisitive man waste the deere treasures of his 
time and eyesight, he shall conclude his life only in 
the certainty that there is no subject received into the 
place of his government with the like style and mag- 
nificence as is the Lord Mayor of the city of London." 
We shall see later on what kind of show would be 
held in the time of Queen Elizabeth. 

As for pageants, they were so splendid that he was 
unhappy, indeed, who could not remember one. But 
there were few so unfortunate. Whenever the King 
paid a visit to the City, on his accession, on his mar- 
riage, on the birth of a prince, the City held a pageant. 
When you read the account of the pageant when 
Henry V. and the City returned thanks for the victory 
of Agincourt, remember to cover in imagination the 
houses with scarlet cloth, to dress the people with 



PLANTAGENET 227 

such bravery of attire and such colors as you can im- 
agine, to let music play at every corner, to let the 
horses be apparelled as bravely as their riders, to let 
the bells be pealing and clashing, to fill up the narra- 
tive with the things which the historian neglects, and 
then own that in the matter of pageants we are poor 
indeed compared with our forefathers five hundred 
years ago. 

On the king's return after the glorious field of Agincourt, 
the Mayor of London and the Aldermen, apparelled in orient 
grained scarlet, and four hundred commoners clad in beautiful 
murrey, well mounted and trimly horsed, with rich collars and 
great chains, met the King at Blackheath ; and the clergy of 
London in solemn procession with rich crosses, sumptuous 
copes, and massy censers, received him at St. Thomas of Wa- 
terings. The King, like a grave and sober personage, and as 
one who remembered from Whom all victories are sent, seemed 
little to regard the vain pomp and shows, insomuch that he 
would not suffer his helmet to be carried with him, whereby 
the blows and dints upon it might have been seen by the peo- 
ple, nor would he suffer any ditties to be made and sung by 
minstrels of his glorious victory, because he would the praise 
and thanks should be altogether given to God. 

At the entrance of London Bridge, on the top of the tower, 
stood a gigantic figure, bearing in his right hand an axe, and 
in his left the keys of the city hanging to a staff, as if he had 
been the porter. By his side stood a female of scarcely less 
stature, intended for his wife. Around them were a band of 
trumpets and other wind instruments. The towers were 
adorned with banners of the royal arms, and in the front of 
them was inscribed civitas regis justicie (the City of the 
King of Righteousness). 

At the drawbridge on each side was erected a lofty column, 
like a little tower, built of wood, and covered with linen ; one 
painted like white marble, and the other like green jasper. 
They were surmounted by figures of the King's beasts, — an an- 



228 LONDON 

telope, having a shield of the royal arms suspended from his 
neck, and a sceptre in his right foot ; and a lion, bearing in his 
right claw the royal standard unfurled. 

At the foot of the bridge next the city was raised a tower, 
formed and painted like the columns before mentioned ; and, 
in the middle of which, under a splendid pavilion, stood a most 
beautiful image of St. George, armed, excepting his head, which 
was adorned with a laurel crown, studded with jems and pre- 
cious stones. Behind him was a crimson tapestry, with his 
arms (a red cross) glittering on a multitude of shields. On his 
right hung his triumphal helmet, and on his left a shield of his 
arms of suitable size. In his right hand he held the hilt of the 
sword with which he was girt, and in his left a scroll, which, 
extending along the turrets, contained these words, SOLI DEO 
honor et gloria. In a contiguous house were innumerable 
boys representing the angelic host, arrayed in white, with glit- 
tering wings, and their hair set with sprigs of laurel ; who, on 
the King's approach, sang, accompanied by organs, an anthem, 
supposed to be that beginning " Our King went forth to Nor- 
mandy;" and whose burthen is, "Deo gratias, Anglia, redde 
pro victoria," — printed in Percy's Reliques. 

The tower of the Conduit on Cornhill was decked with a 
tent of crimson cloth, and ornamented with the King's arms, 
and those of Saints George, Edward, and Edmund. Under the 
pavilion was a company of hoary prophets, in golden coats and 
mantles, and their heads covered with gold and crimson ; who, 
when the King passed, sent forth a great quantity of sparrows 
and other small birds, as a sacrifice agreeable to God, some of 
which alighted on the King's breast, some rested on his shoul- 
ders, and some fluttered round about him. And the prophets 
then sang the psalm, Cantate Domino canticum novum, &c. 

The tower of the Conduit at the entrance of Cheap was hung 
with green, and ornamented with scutcheons. Here sat twelve 
venerable old men, having the names of the twelve Apostles 
written on their foreheads, together with the twelve Kings, 
Martyrs, and Confessors, of the succession of England, who 
also gave their chaunt at the King's approach, and sent forth 
upon him round leaves of silver mixed with wafers, and wine 



PLANTAGENET 229 

out of the pipes of the conduit, imitating Melchisedeck's recep- 
tion of Abraham, when he returned from his victory over the 
Four Kings. 

The Cross of Cheap was not visible, being concealed by a 
beautiful castle, constructed of timber, and covered with linen 
painted to resemble squared blocks of white marble and green 
and crimson jasper. The arms of St. George adorned the sum- 
mit, those of the King and the Emperor were raised on halberds, 
and the lower turrets had the arms of the royal family and the 
great peers of the realm. On a stage in front came forth a 
chorus of virgins with timbrel and dance, as to another David 
coming from the slaughter of Goliah ; their song of congratu- 
lation was, " Welcome, Henry the Fifte, King of Englond and 
of Fraunce." Throughout the building there was also a multi- 
tude of boys, representing the heavenly host, who showered 
down on the King's head small coins resembling gold, and 
boughs of laurel, and sang, accompanied by organs, the Te 
Deum laudamus. 

The tower of the Conduit at the west end of Cheap was sur- 
rounded with pavilions, in each of which was a virgin, who from 
cups in their hands blew forth golden leaves on the King. The 
tower was covered with a canopy made to resemble the sky 
and clouds, the four posts of which were supported by angels, 
and the summit crowned with an archangel of brilliant gold. 
Beneath the canopy, on a throne, was a majestic image repre- 
senting the sun, which glittered above all things, and round it 
were angels singing and playing all kinds of musical instru- 
ments. 

This was the last of the pageantry, and, after the King had 
paid his devotions at St. Paul's, he departed to his palace at 
Westminster. 

Of ecclesiastical functions and processions I say- 
little. The people belonging to the Church, as well 
as the churches themselves, were in every street and 
in every function. At funerals there followed the 
Brotherhood of Sixty, the singing clerks, and the old 



230 LONDON 

priests of the Papey chanting the psalms for the dead. 
And see, here is a company of a hundred and twenty. 
They are not Londoners, they are Dutchmen ; and 
they have come across the sea — such are the ameni- 
ties of mediaeval piety — to flagellate themselves for 
the sins of this city. Will the English follow their 
example and go to flog themselves at Amsterdam ? 
For there are sins to be expiated even in Holland. 
They are stripped to the waist ; every man is armed 
with a whip, and is belaboring the man in front. It 
is a moving spectacle. London cannot choose but 
repent. The tears should be running down the cheeks 
of toper, tosspot, and " rorere." Alas ! we hear of no 
tears. The Dutchmen have to go home again, and 
may, if they please, flagellate themselves for their own 
good, for London is impenitent. 

Then there is the great day of the company — its 
saint's day — the day of visible greatness for the trade. 
On this day is the whole livery assembled ; there must 
be none absent, great or small : all are met in the hall, 
every man in a new gown of the trade coldr. First 
to church ; the boys and singing clerks lead the way, 
chanting as they go. Then march the Lord Mayor's 
sergeants, the servants of the company, and the com- 
pany itself, with its wardens and the officers. Mass 
despatched, they return home in the same order to 
the hall, where they find a banquet spread for them, 
such a banquet as illustrates the wealth and dignity 
of the trade ; the music is in the gallery, the floor is 
spread with rushes newly laid, clean, and warm ; the 
air is fragrant with the burning of that scented Indian 
wood called sanders ; at the high table sit the master 
or warden, the guests — even the King will sometimes 



PLANTAGENET 23 I 

dine with a city company — and the court. Below, at 
the tables, arranged in long lines, are the freemen of 
the company, and not the men alone, but with every 
man sits his wife, or, if he be a bachelor, he is permitted 
to bring a maiden with him if he chooses. Think not 
that a city company of the olden time would call to- 
gether the men to feast alone while the women stayed 
at home. Not at all. The wardens knew very well 
that there is no such certain guard and preservative 
of honesty and order, which are the first requisites for 
the prosperity of trade, as the worship of man for 
maiden and of maid for man. 

When dinner is over, they will elect the officers for 
the year, and doubtless hear a word of admonition on 
the excellence of the work and the jealousy with 
which the standard of good work should be guarded. 
Then the loving-cup goes round, and the mummers 
come in to perform plays and interludes, dressed up 
in such fantastic guise as makes the women scream 
and the men laugh and applaud. 

On the day before Ascension Day there was beat- 
ing of the bounds, a custom still observed, but with 
grievous shrinkage of the ceremonies. 

Perhaps the greatest festival of the year was May 
Day, which fell in the middle of our month of May. 
It must be a hard year indeed when the east winds 
are not over and done with by the middle of May. 
Spring was upon them. Only think what was meant 
by spring to a people whose winters were spent, as 
must have been the case with most of them, in small 
houses, dark and cold, huddled round the fire without 
candles, going to bed early, rising before daylight, 
eating no fresh meat, fruit, or vegetables, waiting im- 



232 LONDON 

patiently for the time to return when they would live 
again in the open, shutters down and doors thrown 
wide. 

All the young people on the eve of May Day went 
out into the fields to gather boughs and white-thorn 
flowers. In Chaucer's " Court of Love," " Forth goeth 
all the court, both most and least, to fetch the flowers 
fresh." Later on, Herrick writes: 

Come, my Corinna, come, and coming, mark 

How each field turns a street, each street a park 

Made green and trimmed with trees ; see how 

Devotion gives each house a bough 

Or branch ; each porch, each door, on this 

An ark, a tabernacle is 

Made up of white thorn neatly interwoven. 

It was the prettiest festival in the world. In every 
parish they raised a May-pole hung with garlands and 
ribbons ; they elected a Queen of the May, and they 
danced and sang about their pole. The London par- 
ishes vied with each other in the height and splendor 
of the pole. One was kept in Gerard's Hall, Basing 
Lane (now swept away by the new streets). This 
was forty feet high. A much later one, erected in 
the Strand, 1661, in defiance to the Puritans, was 130 
feet high. And there was the famous May- pole of 
St. Andrews Under-shaft, destroyed by the Puritans 
as an emblem of idolatry and profligacy. The girls 
came back from their quest of flowers singing, but not 
quite in these words : 

We have been rambling all the night, 

And almost all the day, 
And now returning back again 

We have brought you a branch of May. 



PLANTAGENET 233 

A branch of May we have brought you, 

And at your door it stands ; 
It is but a sprout, but it's well budded out, 

By the work of our Lord's hands. 

And there was morris-dancing, with Robin Hood, 
Friar Tuck, Little John, Tom the Piper, and Tom the 
Fool, with hobby-horses, pipe and tabor, mummers 
and devils, and I know not what ; and Chepe and 
Cornhill and Gracechurch Street were transformed 
into leafy lanes and woodland ways and alleys cut 
through hawthorn and wild rose. You may see to- 
day the hawthorn and the wild rose growing in Ep- 
ping Forest, just as they grew four hundred years ago. 
But the forest has been miserably curtailed of its pro- 
portions. A great slice, wedge-shaped, has been cut 
out bodily, and is now built upon. Hainault Forest 
has perished these forty years, and is converted into 
farms, save for a fragment, and of Middlesex Forest 
nothing remains except the little piece enclosed in 
Lord Mansfield's park. But in those days the forest 
came down to the hamlet of Iseldun, afterwards Mer- 
ry Islington. 

And in the month of June there were the burning 
of bonfires to clear and cleanse the air, and the march- 
ing of the watch on the vigils of St. John Baptist and 
St. Peter. 

Hear the testimony of Stow : 

In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days 
and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun set- 
ting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every 
man bestowing wood or labour towards them ; the wealthier 
sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would 
set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and 



234 LONDON 

good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks 
plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and 
passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great famil- 
iarity, praising God for His benefits bestowed on them. These 
were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neigh- 
bours, that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour 
of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends ; 
and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the in- 
fection of the air. On the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and 
on St. Peter and Paul the Apostles, every man's door being 
shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St. John's wort, orpin, 
white lillies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of 
beautiful flowers, had also lamps of glass, with oil burning in 
them all the night ; some hung out branches of iron curiously 
wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which 
made a goodly show, namely, in New Fish Street, Thames 
Street, &c. Then had ye besides the standing watches all in 
bright harness, in every ward and street of this city and sub- 
urbs, a marching watch, that passed through the principal 
streets thereof, to wit, from the little conduit by Paul's Gate 
to West Cheap, by the stocks through Cornhill, by Leaden- 
hall to Aldgate, then back down Fenchurch Street, by Grass 
Church, about Grass Church conduit, and up Grass Church 
Street into Cornhill, and through it into West Cheap again. 
The whole way for this marching watch extendeth to three 
thousand two hundred tailor's yards of assize ; for the furniture 
whereof with lights, there were appointed seven hundred cres- 
sets, five hundred of them being found by the companies, the 
other two hundred by the Chamber of London. Besides the 
which lights every constable in London, in number more than 
two hundred and forty, had his cresset : the charge of every 
cresset was in light two shillings and fourpence, and every 
cresset had two men, one to bear or hold it, another to bear a 
bag with light, and to serve it, so that the poor men pertaining 
to the cressets, taking wages, besides that every one had a 
straw hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morn- 
ing, amounted in number to almost two thousand. The 
marching watch contained in number about two thousand 



PLANTAGENET 235 

men, part of them being old soldiers of skill, to be captains, 
lieutenants, sergeants, corporals, &c, whifflers, drummers, and 
fifes, standard and ensign-bearers, sword-players, trumpeters 
on horseback, demilances on great horses, gunners with hand 
guns, or half hakes, archers in coats of white fustian, signed 
on the breast and back with the arms of the city, their bows 
bent in their hands, with sheaves of arrows by their sides, pike- 
men in bright corslets, burganets, &c, halberds, the like bill- 
men in almaine rivets, and aprons of mail in great number; 
there were also divers pageants, morris dancers, constables, the 
one-half, which was one hundred and twenty, on St. John's 
Eve, the other half on St. Peter's Eve, in bright harness, some 
overgilt, and every one a jornet of scarlet thereupon, and a chain 
of gold, his henchman following him, his minstrels before him, 
and his cresset light passing by him, the waits of the city, the 
mayor's officers for his guard before him, all in a livery of 
worsted or say jackets party-coloured, the mayor himself well- 
mounted on horseback, the sword-bearer before him in fair 
armour well mounted also, the mayor's footmen, and the like 
torch-bearers about him, henchmen twain upon great stirring 
horses, following him. The sheriff's watches came one after 
the other in like order, but not so large in number as the 
mayor's ; for where the mayor had besides his giant three 
pageants, each of the sheriffs had besides their giants but two 
pageants, each their morris dance, and one henchman, their offi- 
cers in jackets of worstead or say party-coloured, differing from 
the mayor's, and each from other, but having harnessed men a 
great many, &c. 

On the Feast of St. Bartholomew there were wrest- 
lings, foot-races, and shooting with the bow for prizes. 
On Holyrood Day (September 14th) the young men 
and the maidens went nutting in the woods. At Mar- 
tinmas (November 1st) there was feasting to welcome 
the beginning of winter. Lastly, the old year ended 
and the new year began with the mixture and succes- 
sion of religious services, pageants, shows, feasting, 



236 LONDON 

drinking, and dancing, which the London citizen of 
every degree loved so much. 

Then there were the City holidays. St. Lubbock 
had predecessors. There were Christmas Day, Twelfth 
Day, Easter, the day of St. John the Baptist, on June 
24th, and of St. Peter and St. Paul, on June 29th. 
On the last two days, to discourage the people from 
keeping it up all night, the vintners had to close their 
doors at ten. 

The City of London has always been famous for the 
great plenty and variety of its food. Beef, mutton, 
and pork formed then, as now, the staple of the diet ; 
small beer was the drink of all, men, women, and chil- 
dren. When, for instance, the Franciscans first set 
up their humble cells, the small beer being short in 
quantity, they did not drink water, but mixed water 
with the beer, in order to make it go round. There 
were so many fast-days in the year that fish was as 
important a form of food as mutton or beef. They 
ate lampreys, porpoise, and sturgeon, among other 
fish. Ling, cod, and herring furnished them with salt- 
ed fish. Peacocks and swans adorned their tables at 
great banquets. Their dishes were sweetened with 
honey, for sugar was scarce, but spices were abundant. 
By the thirteenth century they had begun to make 
plentiful use of vegetables. They were fond of pound- 
ing meats of different kinds, such as pork and poultry, 
and mixing them in a kind of rissole. At a certain 
great banquet, the menu of which has survived, there 
appears neither beef nor mutton, probably because 
those meats belonged to the daily life, but there are 
great birds and little birds, brawn, rabbits, swans, and 
venison for meats, soup of cabbage, then the rissoles 



PLANTAGENET 237 

just mentioned, and various sweetmeats. Their drink 
was strong ale for banquets, hot spiced ale with a 
toast, the loving-cup of hypocras, and for wines, Rhen- 
ish, sack, Lisbon, and wine of Bordeaux. 

Since every man in the City who practised a trade 
must be a freeman and a member of a company or 
trade guild, and since every company looked after its 
livery, there should have been no poor in the City at 
all. But performance falls short of promise ; laws 
cannot always be enforced ; there was, it is quite cer- 
tain, a mass of poverty and worthlessness in the City 
even in those days. Perhaps the City proper, with its 
wards, was tolerably free from rogues and vagabonds, 
but there were the suburb of Southwark, that of the 
Strand, that already springing up outside Cripplegate, 
and the city of Westminster. Plenty of room here 
for rogues to find shelter. There were also the trades 
of which the City took no heed, of minstrels, jugglers, 
and actors, and all those who lived by amusing others ; 
also the calling of servant in every kind, as drover, 
carter, wagoner, carrier, porter (not yet associated), 
and so forth. And there were the men who would 
never do any work at all, yet wanted as much drink 
and food as the honest men who did their share. For 
all these people, when they were hungry, there were 
the charities of the great men, the bishops, and the 
monasteries. For instance, the Earl of Warwick al- 
lowed any man to take as much meat as he could 
carry away on a dagger ; the Bishop of Ely (but this 
was later, in the sixteenth century) gave every day 
bread, drink, and meat to two hundred poor people ; 
the Earl of Derby fed every day, twice, sixty old peo- 
ple : thrice a week all comers ; and on Good Friday 



238 LONDON 

2700 men and women. In the year 1293, being a 
time of dearth, the Archbishop of Canterbury fed 
daily four or five thousand. In 1171, Henry II., as 
part of his penance for the murder of a Becket, fed 
10,000 people from April till harvest. In the reign of 
Edward III. the Bishop of Durham bestowed on the 
poor every week eight quarters of wheat, besides the 
broken victuals of his house. 

The almshouses, of which there are so many still 
existing, belong for the most part to a later time. 
The citizens founded hospitals for the necessitous 
as well as for the sick ; they rebuilt and beautified 
churches ; they endowed charities, and gave relief to 
poor prisoners. The first almshouses recorded were 
founded in the fourteenth century by William Elsing, 
mercer, who, in 1332, endowed a house for the support 
of a hundred blind men, and by John Stodie, citizen 
and vintner, Mayor in 1358, who built and endowed 
thirteen almshouses for as many poor citizens. In 
1415 William Sevenoke, citizen and grocer, founded a 
school and almshouses in his native place, and two 
years later Whittington founded by will his college 
and almshouses. The college has been swallowed up, 
but the almshouses remain, though transferred to 
Highgate. After this the rich citizens began to re- 
member the poor in their wills, choosing rather, like 
Philip Malpas, Sheriff in 1440, to give clothing to poor 
men and women, marriage dowries to poor maidens, 
and money for the highways than to bequeath the 
money for the singing of masses or the endowment of 
charities. 

One more amusement must be mentioned, because 
it is the only one of which the honest Londoners have 



PLANTAGENET 239 

never wearied. It is mentioned by the worthy Fitz 
Stephen. It still continues to afford joy to millions. 
The craftsman of the fourteenth century found it at 
the Mermaid in Cornhill, or the Three Tuns of New- 
gate, or the Swan of Dowgate, or the Salutation of 
Billingsgate, or the Boar's Head of London Stone. 
He found it in company with his fellows, and whether 
he took it out of a glass or a silver mazer or a black 
jack, he took it joyfully, and he took it abundantly. 
Tosspots and swinkers were they then ; tosspots and 
swinkers are they still. 

To set against this eagerness for pleasure, this avid- 
ity after sports of every kind, we must remember the 
continual recurrence of plague and pestilence, espe- 
cially in the fourteenth century, 1 when the love of 
shows and feasting was at its highest, and when the 
Black Death carried off half the citizens. Is it not a 
natural result ? When life is so uncertain that men 
know not to-day how many will be alive to-morrow, 
they snatch impatiently at the present joy ; it is too 
precious to be lost ; another moment, and the chance 
will be gone — perhaps forever. As is the merriment 
of the camp when the battle is imminent, so is the joy 
of the people between the comings of the plague. 
Life never seems so full of rich and precious gifts as 
at such a time. As for the lessons in sanitation that 
the plague should teach, the people had not as yet 
begun to learn them. The lay stalls and the river- 
bank, despite laws and proclamations, continued to be 
heaped with filth, and the narrow street received the 
refuse from every house. And, in addition to the oc- 

1 Plague in 1348, 1361, 1367, 1369, 1407, 1478, 1485, and 1500. 



240 LONDON 

casional plague, there was ever present typhoidal fe- 
ver striking down old and young. 

Perhaps the joy of the present was also intensified 
by the possibility of famine. At the end of the twelfth 
century there was a terrible famine. There was one 
in 125 1 ; there was one in 13 14, when " no flesh was 
to be had ... a quarter of wheat, beans, and peas was 
sold for twenty shillings." This is something like 
twenty pounds at present prices. This famine contin- 
ued throughout the next year, when Stow says " horse- 
flesh was counted great delicates, the poore stole fatte 
dogges to eate ; some (as it was said), compelled 
through famine, in hidden places, did eate the fleshe 
of their owne children, and some stole others, which 
they devoured. Thieves that were in prison did 
plucke in pieces those that were newlie brought 
among them, and greedily devoured them half alive." 
The uncertainty whether next year would produce 
any bread at all sweetened the loaf of to-day. In the 
year 1335 long-continued rains caused a famine. In 
1353 there was another; in 1438 the scarcity was so 
great that bread was made from fern-roots, and so on. 

The earliest schools of the City were those of St. 
Paul's, Westminster, and the Abbey of Bermondsey. 
Each of the religious houses in turn, as it was erected, 
opened another school. When, however, Henry V. 
had suppressed the alien priories, of which four cer- 
tainly, and perhaps more, belonged to London, their 
schools were also suppressed. So much was the loss 
felt that Henry VI., the greatest founder of schools of 
all the kings, erected four new grammar-schools, name- 
ly : at St. Martin's le Grand, St. Dunstan in the West, 
St. Mary le Bow, and St. Anthony's ; and in the fol- 



PLANTAGENET 



241 



lowing year he made four more, namely: in the par- 
ishes of St. Andrew's, Holborn ; All Hallows the 
Great, Thames Street ; St. Peter's, Cornhill ; and St. 
Thomas of Aeon. 

But to what extent education prevailed, whether 
the sons of craftsmen were taught to read and write 
before they were apprenticed, I know not. For them 



5ci 69 1 




Ij^rp \f 



THE STRAND (1547), WITH THE . STRAND CROSS, COVENT GARDEN, AND THE PROCES- 
SION OF EDWARD VI. TO HIS CORONATION AT WESTMINSTER 

16 



242 LONDON 

the trivium and the quadrivium of the mediaeval 
school, the grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, music, arith- 
metic, geometry, and astronomy could not possibly 
be of use. On the other hand, one cannot under- 
stand that the child of a respectable London craftsman 
should be allowed to grow up to the age of fourteen 
with no education at all. As for the children of gen- 
tle birth, we know very well how they were taught. 
Their education was planned so as to include very 
carefully the mastery of those accomplishments which 
we call good manners. It also included Latin, French, 
reading, writing, poetry, and music. In the towns the 
merchants and the better class understood very well 
the necessity of education for their own needs. The 
poor scholar, however — the lad who was born of hum- 
ble parents and received his education for nothing — 
was a young man well known and recognized as a 
common type. But he never intended his learning to 
adorn a trade; rather should it lead him to the uni- 
versity, to the Church, even to a bishopric. It is sig- 
nificant that throughout Riley's Memorials there is no 
mention of school or of education ; there is no hint 
anywhere how the children of the working-classes were 
taught. One thing is certain, the desire for learning 
was gradually growing and deepening in those years: 
and when the Reformation set the Bible free, there 
were plenty — thanks perhaps to King Henry's gram- 
mar-schools — in the class of craftsmen who could read 
it. But as yet we are two hundred years from the 
freeing of the Book. 

It is always found that the laws are strict in an in- 
verse proportion to the strength of the executive. 
Thus, had the laws been properly carried out, London 



PLANTAGENET 243 

would have been the cleanest and the most orderly 
town of the present, past, and future. Every man 
was enjoined to keep the front of his house clean ; no 
refuse was to be thrown into the gutter ; no one was 
to walk the streets at night. When the curfew-bell 
rang, first from St. Martin's, and afterwards from all 
the churches together, the gates of the City were 
closed ; the taverns were shut ; no one was allowed 
to walk about the streets ; no boats were to cross the 
river ; the sergeants of Billingsgate and Queenhithe 
had each his boat, with its crew of four men, to guard 
the river and the quays ; guards were posted at the 
closed gates ; a watch of six men was set in every 
ward, all the men of the ward being liable to serve 
upon it. These were excellent rules. Yet we find 
men haled before the Mayor charged with being com- 
mon roreres (roarers), with beating people in the streets, 
enticing them into taverns, where they were made to 
drink and to gamble. Among the common roreres 
was once found, alas ! a priest. What, however, were 
the other people doing in the street after curfew? 
And why were not the taverns shut ? As is the 
strength of the ruling arm, so should be the law. We 
are not ourselves free from the reproach of passing 
laws which cannot be enforced because they are 
against the will of the people, and the executive is 
too weak to carry them out against that will. People, 
you see, cannot be civilized by statute. 

The wages and hours of work of the craftsman 
have not been satisfactorily ascertained.' The day's 
work probably meant the whole day. Like the rustic, 
he would begin in the summer at five and leave off at 
7.30, with certain breaks. In winter he would work 



244 



LONDON 



through the daylight. His wages, which were ordered 
for the craft by the company, seem to have been am- 
ple so long as employment was continuous. But the 
crafts were always complaining of foreign competition. 
Edward IV., in 1463, states that owing to the import 
of wares fully wrought and ready made for sale, " arti- 
ficers cannot live by their mysteries and occupations 

as they have done 
in times past, but 
divers of them, as 
well householders 
as hirelings, and 
under - servants 
and apprentices in 
great numbers, be 
this day unoccu- 
pied, and do hard- 




AKMS OF SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON 



ly live in great 
misery, poverty, 
and need." Therefore the statute enumerates a long 
list of things that are not to be exported. Among 
these we observe knives, razors, scissors— showing that 
the cutlery trade was already flourishing then — but 
not swords, spear-heads, or armor of any kind. Actual 
artificers were not to be employers but only servants ; 
those already established could sell in gross but not 
in retail, and they were not to have alien servants. 
That there was discontent among the working-men 
is clear from these statutes and from the constant 
attempts of the craftsmen to form journeyman, or 
yeoman guilds, whose real objects, though they might 
mask them under the name of religion, were to in- 
crease wages and keep out new-comers. 



PLANTAGENET 245 

Apart from the question of wages, what the crafts- 
men wanted was what the masters, too, demanded — 
" encouragement of natives, discouragement of for- 
eigners, the development of shipping, and the amass- 
ing of treasure.' ' 

Such were the people of London in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries. Such was Plantagenet Lon- 
don, the land of Cocaigne — Cockney Land — whither 
the penniless young gentleman, the son of the coun- 
try squire, made his way in search of the fortune 
which others had picked up on its golden pavement. 

Strewed with gold and silver sheen, 

In Cockneys' streets no molde is seen; 

Pancakes be the shingles alle 

Of church and cloister, bower and halle; 

Running rivers, grete and fine, 

Of hypocras and ale and wine. 

But, indeed, a pavement of flints and stones the 
City offered to any who tried to win her fortunes save 
by the way prescribed. Of course there were — there 
always are — many who cannot enter by the appointed 
gate, nor keep to the ordered way. As it is now, so 
it was then. There were rogues and cheats ; there 
were men who preferred any way of life to the honest 
way. How the City in its wisdom dealt with those 
we shall now see. 

At first sight one may be struck with the leniency 
of justice. In cases which in later years were pun- 
ished by flogging at the cart-tail, by hanging, by long- 
imprisonment, the criminal of the fourteenth century 
stood in pillory, or was made to ride through the 

1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry, p. 416. 



246 



LONDON 



streets, the nature of his crime symbolized by some- 
thing hung from his neck. There were as yet no 
burnings, no slicing off of ears ; there was no rack, no 
torture by rope, boot, or water. It is true that those 
who ventured upon violence to the sacred person of 
an Alderman were liable to have the right hand struck 

off ; but at the last mo- 
ment that officer always 
begged and obtained a 
commutation, while the 
criminal made humble 
submission. Those who 
have entered upon an in- 
heritance of law-abiding 
and of order have forgot- 
ten by what severities 
men were forced into ex- 
ternal forms of respect 
for the officers of justice. 
Then, again, the Alder- 
man knew every man in 
his ward; he was no 
stranger among his peo- 
ple; he knew the circum- 
stances and the condi- 
tion of every one ; he 
was punishing a brother 
who had brought the 
ward into disrepute by his unruly conduct ; he was 
therefore tender, saving the dignity of his office and 
his duty to the city. 

For instance, it was once discovered that wholesale 
robberies were carried on by certain bakers who made 




ARMS GRANTED TO THE CRAFT OF THE 
IRONMONGERS OF LONDON BV LANCAS- 
TER KING OF ARMS, A.D. 1466 



TLANTAGENET 247 

holes in their moulding- boards, and so filched the 
dough. These rogues in the last century would have 
been flogged unmercifully. Robert de Bretaigne, 
Mayor A.D. 1387, was satisfied by putting them in pil- 
lory till after vespers at St. Paul's, with dough hung 
about their necks, so that all the world might know 
why they were there. When certain " tapicers " were 
charged with selling false blankets, that is, blankets 
which had been " vamped " in foreign parts with the 
hair of oxen and cows, the blankets were ordered to 
be burned. On the other hand, highway robbery, 
burglaries, and some cases of theft were punished by 
hanging. The unhappy Desiderata de Torgnton, for 
instance, in an evil moment stole from a servant of 
the Lady Alice de Lisle thirty dishes and twenty-four 
salt-cellars of silver. The servant was bound by sure- 
ties that he would prosecute for felony, and did so, 
with the result that Desiderata was hanged, and her 
chattels confiscated ; but of chattels had she none. 

For selling putrid meat the offender was put in pil- 
lory, and the bad meat — dreadful addition to the sen- 
tence — burned beneath his nose. The sale of " false " 
goods — that is, things not made as they should be 
made, either of bad materials or of inferior materials 
— was always punished by destruction of the things. 

What should be done to a man who spoke disre- 
spectfully of the Mayor? One Roger Torold, citizen 
and vintner, in the year of grace 1355, and in the 
twenty-eighth year of our Sovereign Lord King Ed- 
ward III., said one day, in the presence of witnesses, 
that he was ready to defy the Mayor; and that if he 
should catch the Mayor outside the City, then the 
Mayor should never come back to it alive. These 



248 



LONDON 



things being reported, the Mayor caused him to be 
brought before himself, the Aldermen, and Sheriffs at 
the Guildhall. The prisoner confessed his crime, and 
put himself upon the favor of the Court. He was 




GUILDHALL, KING STREET, LONDON 



committed to prison while the Court considered what 
should be done to him. Being brought to the bar, he 
offered to pay a fine of one hundred tuns of wine for 
restoration to the favor of the Mayor. This was ac- 
cepted, on the condition that he should also make a 
recognizance of ,£40 sterling to be paid if ever again 
he should abuse or insult the name or person of the 
Mayor. For perjury, the offender was, for a first 
crime, taken to the Guildhall, and there placed upon 
a high stool, bareheaded, before the Mayor and Alder- 
men. For the second offence he was placed in pil- 



PLANTAGENET 249 

lory. For women, the thew was substituted for the 
pillory. One Alice, wife of Robert de Causton, stood 
in the thew for thickening the bottom of a quart-pot 
with pitch, so as to give short measure. The said 
quart-pot was divided into two parts, of which one 
half was tied to the pillory in sight of the people, and 
the other half was kept in the Guildhall. 

Death by hanging or pillory. These were almost 
the only punishments. The cases before the Mayor's 
Court remind us of the remarkable resemblance we 
bear to our ancestors. They are monotonous because 
they read like the cases in a modern Police Court. 
Giles Pykeman goes in terror of his life, because cer- 
tain persons threaten him, but they find surety for 
good behavior. John Edmond Commonger, convict- 
ed of passing off bad oats for good — pillory. John 
William, for passing off rings of latten as rings of gold 
— pillory. Nicolas Mollere, for spreading false news 
— pillory, with a whetstone round his neck to mark 
the offence. Heavens! if this offence were again 
made penal. John Mayn, indicted for being a leper 
— banished out of the city. Robert Brebason, stock 
fish-monger, charged with assault in presence of the 
Mayor. Not a case for pillory this : let him be im- 
prisoned for a year and a day in Newgate. Alice 
Sheltoir, charged with being a common scold — to the 
thew. John Rykorre, cordwainer, for forging a bond 
— pillory. 

As an illustration of the times I give the story of 
William Blakeney. He was a shuttle-maker by trade, 
but a pilgrim by profession. He dressed for the part 
with long hair, long gown, and bare feet. He loitered 
about in places where men resorted — taverns and such 



250 LONDON 

— and there entertained all comers with travellers' 
tales. He had been everywhere, this pious and ad- 
venturous pilgrim. He had seen Seville, city of sacred 
relics; Rome, the abode of his Holiness the Pope; he 
had even seen the Pope himself. He had been to the 
Holy Land, and stood within the very sepulchre of 
our Lord. And what with the strange creatures he 
had met with in those far-off lands, and the men and 
women among whom he had sojourned, and the things 
he could tell you, and the things which he postponed 
till the next time, the story would fill volumes. For 
six years he lived in great comfort, eating and drink- 
ing of the best, always at the expense of his hearers. 
This man must have been an unequalled story-teller. 
Six years of invention ever fresh and new ! Then he 
was found out — he had never been a pilgrimage in his 
life. He had never been out of sight of the London 
walls. So he stood in pillory — this poor novelist, who 
would in these days have commanded so much respect 
and such solid rewards — he stood in pillory, with a 
whetstone round his neck, as if he had been a com- 
mon liar ! And then he had to go back to the dull 
monotony of shuttle-making, and that in silence, with 
nobody to believe him any more. Well, he shortly 
afterwards died, I am convinced, of suppressed fiction. 
But perhaps his old friends rallied round him, and by 
the light of the fire he still beguiled the long evenings 
by telling for the hundredth time of the one-eyed 
men, and the men with tails, and the men who have 
but one leg, and use their one foot for an umbrella 
against the scorching sun — all of whom he had seen 
in the deserts on the way from Jerusalem to Damas- 
cus, where St. Paul was converted. 



PLANTAGENET 253 

On a day in the beginning of October, 1382, there 
was great excitement in the parish of St. Mildred, 
Poultry. A certain mazer, or silver cup, the property 
of Dame Matilda de Eye, had been stolen. Now, 
whether Alan, the water-carrier, had his suspicions, or 
whether he was himself suspected, or whether he 
wished to fix the guilt on somebody else, I know not, 
but he repaired to the house of Robert Berewold, of 
great repute for art magic, and inquired of him as to 
the real thief. Whereupon Robert took a loaf, and 
in the top of it fixed a round peg of wood, and four 
knives at the four sides, so as to present the fig- 
ure of a cross. He then did " soothsaying and art 
magic " over the loaf. After which he declared that 
Johanne Wolsy was the person who had stolen the 
cup. 

This thing being bruited abroad, and the voice of 
the indignant Johanne ascending to the ears of the 
Aldermen, the said Robert was attached to make an- 
swer to the Mayor and commonalty as in a plea of 
deceit and falsehood. Answer there was none. Where- 
upon Robert stood in pillory for one hour, the loaf, 
peg, and knives hung about his neck ; and on the fol- 
lowing Sunday he went to the parish church — it is 
now pulled down — and in the presence of the congre- 
gation confessed that he had falsely defamed the 
same Johanne. Meantime Alan, one may believe, 
had consigned the mazer to a safe place, and joined 
in the congratulations of Johanne's friends. 

Would you know how a young married couple set 
up house -keeping? Here is the inventory of the 
household furniture of such a pair in the fourteenth 
century. It is not the only document of the kind 



254 



LONDON 



which exists, but it is interesting because it forms 
part of a story which remains unfinished. 

The inventory belongs to the year 1337. The pro- 
prietor's name was Hugh le Bevere ; that of his wife 
Alice. Hugh le Bevere was a craftsman of the better 

sort, but not a mas- 
ter. He was so well 
off that the furniture 
of his house, includ- 
ing clothes, was val- 
ued at £\2 185. \d., 
which, being inter- 
preted into modern 
money, means about 
^200. He had been 
married but a short 
time when the events 
occurred which 
caused this invento- 
ry to be drawn up. 
The newly -married 
pair lived in a house 
consisting of two 
rooms, one above the other. The lower room, which 
was kitchen and keeping-room in one, was divided from 
the houses on either side by solid stone walls ; it had 
a chimney and a fireplace ; the walls were hung round 
with kitchen utensils, tools, and weapons ; a window 
opened to the street, the upper part of which was 
glazed, while the lower part could be closed by a stout 
shutter; the door opened into the street; there was 
another door at the back, which opened upon a but- 
tery, where there stood ranged in a row six casks of 




ANCIENT PLATE 



PLANTAGENET 255 

wine. One folding- table and two chairs served for 
their wants, because they were not rich enough to en- 
tertain their friends. A ladder led to the upper room, 
which was an attic or garret, built of wood and 
thatched with rush. Here was the bed with a mat- 
tress, three feather beds, and two pillows. A great 
wooden coffer held their household gear ; here were 
six blankets and one serge, a coverlet with shields of 
sendall (a kind of thin silk), eight linen sheets, four 
table-cloths. The clothes, which were laid in chests 
or hung upon the wall, consisted of three surcoats of 
worsted and ray ; one coat with a hood of perset 
(peach-colored cloth), and another of worsted; two 
robes of perset ; one of medley, furred ; one of scarlet, 
furred ; a great hood of sendall with edging ; one 
camise (only one !) and half a dozen savenapes (aprons). 
One perceives that the inventory omits many things. 
Where, for instance, were the hosen and the shoon ? 
For kitchen utensils there were brass pots, a grate, 
andirons, basins, washing vessels, a tripod, an iron 
horse, an iron spit, a frying-pan, a funnel, and two 
ankers — i.e. tubs. They had one candlestick " of lat- 
tone ;" two plates ; an aumbrey (cabinet or small cup- 
board); curtains to hang before the doors to keep out 
the cold ; cushions and a green carpet ; and for the 
husband a haketon, or suit of leather armor, and an 
iron head-piece. Of knives, forks, wooden plates, cups, 
glasses, or drinking measures there is nothing said at 
all. But it is evident that the house was provided 
with everything necessary for solid comfort ; plenty 
of kitchen vessels, for instance, and plenty of soft 
feather-beds, blankets, pillows, curtains, and sheets. 
Every morning at six o'clock, after a hunch of 



256 LONDON 

bread, a substantial slice of cold meat, and a pull at 
the black-jack of small ale, Hugh le Bevere walked off 
to his day's work. Then Alice, left at home, washed 
and scoured, made and mended, cooked the dinner, 
talked to the neighbors, and, when all was done, sat in 
the door-way enjoying the sunshine and spinning 
busily. 

They had been married but a short time. There 
were no children. Then — one knows nothing ; one 
must not judge harshly; there may have been jeal- 
ousy; there may have been cause for jealousy; per- 
haps the woman had a tongue unendurable (four- 
teenth-century tongues were cruelly sharp) ; perhaps 
the man had a temper uncontrolled (in that century 
there were many such) ; but no one knows, and, again, 
we must not judge — then, I say, the end came, sud- 
denly and without warning. When it was all over, 
some of the neighbors thought they had heard high 
words and a smothered shriek, but then we often 
think we have heard what probably happened. In 
the morning Hugh le Bevere went not forth to his 
work as usual; Alice did not open the door; the 
shutters remained closed. The neighbors knocked ; 
there was no answer. They sent for the Alderman, 
who came with his sergeants, and broke open the 
door. Alas ! alas ! They found the body of Alice 
lying stark and dead upon the floor ; beside her sat 
her husband with white face and haggard eyes, and 
the evidence of his crime, the knife itself, lying where 
he had thrown it. 

They haled him to the Lord Mayor's Court. They 
questioned him. He made no reply at first, looking 
as one distraught ; when he spoke, he refused to 



PLANTAGENET 



257 



plead. For this, in later times, he would have been 
pressed to death. What was done to him was almost 
as bad ; for they took him to Newgate, and shut him 
up in a cell with penance — that is to say, on bread and 
water — until he died. 

This done, they buried the unfortunate Alice, and 
made the inventory of all the chattels, which the City 
confiscated, and sold for £\2 \Zs. 4^/., out of which, no 




doubt, they paid for the fu- 
neral of the woman and the 
penance of the man. The 
rest, one hopes, was laid out 

in masses, as far as it would go, for the souls of the 
hapless pair. Death has long since released Hugh 
17 



258 LONDON 

le Bevere ; he has entered his plea before another 
Court; but the City has never learned why he killed 
his wife, or if, indeed, he really did kill her. 

Of Plantagenet London this is my picture. You 
see a busy, boisterous, cheerful city ; with the excep- 
tion of the cities of Ghent and Bruges and Antwerp, 
the busiest and the most prosperous city of the west- 
ern world, with the greatest liberty of the people, 
the greatest plenty of all good things, and the hap- 
piest conditions of any town. You have seen that 
though the sovereign was King within as well as with- 
out the walls, there was no other Over -Lord; the 
royal hand was sometimes heavy, but its weight was 
better to bear than the internal dissensions that rav- 
aged the Italian cities; it was better that London 
should suffer with the rest of the country than that 
she should sit, like Venice, secure and selfish beside 
her quays, though the people of the land behind were 
torn with civil wars and destroyed by famine and 
overrun by a foreign enemy. 

When we think of this period let us never forget its 
external splendor — the silken banners, the heralds in 
their embroidered coats, the livery of the great lords, 
the Mayor and Aldermen in their robes riding to hear 
mass at St. Paul's, the cloth of gold, the vair and min- 
iver, the ermine and the sable, the robes of perset and 
the hoods of sendall, the red velvet and the scarlet 
silk, the great gold chains, the caps embroidered with 
pearls, the horses with their trappings, the banners 
and the shields, the friars jostling the parish priests, 
the men-at-arms, the city ladies, as glorious with their 
raiment as the ladies of the court, the knights, the 
common folk, the merchant, and the prentice. Mostly 



PLANTAGENET 26 1 

I like to think of the prentice. One always envies 
the young ; theirs is the inheritance. The prentice 
lived amid these glories, which seemed like pageants 
invented entirely for his delight. It was time when 
the fleeting shows and vanities of life were valued all 
the more because they were so fleeting. He looked 
around, and his heart swelled with the joy of thinking 
that some day these things would fall to him if he 
was lucky, diligent, and watchful. His was the three- 
fold vow of industry, obedience, and duty. By keep- 
ing this vow he would attain to the place and station 
of his master. 

Meantime, there were great sights to be seen and 
no hinderance to his seeing them. 

When there any ridings were in Chepe, 
Out of the shoppe thider would he lepe : 
And till that he had all the sights y seen, 
And danced well he would not come again. 

For the continued noise and uproar of the City, for 
its crowds, for its smells, the people cared nothing. 
They were part of the City. They loved everything 
that belonged to it — their great cathedral ; their hun- 
dred churches ; their monasteries ; their palaces and 
the men-at-arms ; the nobles, priests, and monks ; the 
Mayor and Aldermen; the ships and the sailors; the 
merchants and the craftsmen ; the ridings and the 
festivals and the holy days ; the ringing, clinging, 
clashing of the bells all day long; the drinking at the 
taverns; the wrestling and the archery; the dancing; 
the pipe and tabor; the pageants, and the mumming 

and the love-making — all, all they loved. And they 
17* 



262 LONDON 

thought in their pride that there was not anywhere in 
the whole habitable world — witness the pilgrims and 
the ship-captains, who had seen the whole habitable 
world — any city that might compare with famous 
London Town. 



VI 

TUDOR 
I. SPRING-TIME AMONG THE RUINS 

IF the London of the Third Edward was a city 
of palaces, that of Queen Elizabeth was a city of 
ruins. 

Ruins everywhere ! Ruins of cloisters, halls, dor- 
mitories, courts, and chapels, and churches. Ruins 
of carved altar-pieces, canopies, statues, painted win- 
dows, and graven fonts. Ruins of old faiths and old 
traditions. Ruins everywhere. Only consider what 
became of the monastic buildings. King Edward's 
Cistercian House, called the New Abbey, or Eastmin- 
ster, was pulled " clean down," and in its place store- 
houses for victuals and ovens for making ships' bis- 
cuits were set up. On the abbey grounds were erect- 
ed small tenements for poor working-people, the only 
inhabitants of that neighborhood where is now the 
Mint. Sir Arthur Darcie it was who did this. The 
Convent of St. Clare, called the Minories, was similarly 
treated, its site converted into storehouses. The old 
buildings are always said to have been entirely pulled 
down, but their destruction was never thorough. Walls 
were everywhere left standing, because it was too 



264 



LONDON 




much trouble to pull them down. For instance, the 
north wall of the present mean little Church of the 
Holy Trinity, Minories, ugliest and meanest of all 
modern London churches, was formerly part of the 
wall of the nuns' chapel. 

More fortunate than the other monastic churches, 
that of the Austin Friars was allowed to remain stand- 
ing. The nave was walled off and assigned to the 

Dutch residents, with 
ass^i whom it has continued 
to this day. You may 
attend the service on 
Sunday, and while the 
preacher in the black 
gown addresses his 
scanty audience in the 
language which, though 
it sounds so much like 
English, you cannot un- 
derstand, you may look about you, and think of the 
Augustine Brothers who built this church. In their 
time it was filled with monuments, of which not a sin- 
gle one now remains. The nave was greatly damaged 
by a fire in 1862, but the walls and columns of the an- 
cient church remain. The rest of the church, including 
the finest and most beautiful spire in the whole city, 
was all pulled down by the Marquis of Winchester, 
who broke up and sold the whole of the monuments 
for ;£ioo. In this church were buried, among other 
illustrious dead, the great Hubert de Burgh ; Edmund 
Plantagenet, half brother to Richard II.; the barons 
who fell at the battle of Barnet ; Richard FitzAlan, 
Earl of Arundel, beheaded 1397; the Earl of Oxford, 



BOAR IN EASTCHEAP 



TUDOR 265 

beheaded 1463 ; and Edward Strafford, Duke of Buck- 
ingham, beheaded 1521. Winchester House, which 
stood till fifty years ago, was built on part of the abbey 
grounds ; Cromwell House, on a site where now stands 
the Drapers' Hall, on another part. 

The Priory of the Holy Trinity, granted to Sir 
Thomas Audley, fared worse still, for the whole church 
— choir, transepts, nave, steeple, and all — was, with 
great labor, pulled down, and the whole materials and 
monuments sold for paving or building stones at six- 
pence a cart-load. The ring of nine bells was divided 
between Stepney Church and St. Katherine Cree, 
where, I believe, they still hang and do their duty. 
So much, and that is all, is left of this proud founda- 
tion. Sir Thomas Audley, who obtained the precinct 
by gift of the King, built a house upon it. His daugh- 
ter and heiress marrying the Duke of Norfolk, the 
house and grounds were named after their new owner. 
Duke's Place and Duke Street preserve the new name. 
The former, now a mean square, crowded with Jews 
engaged in the fruit trade, is certainly the site of one 
of the courts of the old priory. It is at the back 
of St. Katherine Cree Church in Leadenhall Street. 
Strange, that of this most rich and splendid house not 
a vestige should remain either of name, or building, 
or tradition. 

Crutched Friars' Church was made into a carpen- 
ter's shop and a tennis court. Their refectory, a very 
noble hall, became a glass-house, and was burned to 
the ground in the year 1575. 

St. Mary's Spital, outside Bishopsgate, which had 
been a hospital with one hundred and eighty beds, 
was entirely destroyed and built over. But Spital 



266 LONDON 

Square, which now remains, marks the site of the 
church-yard, where stood (in the north-east corner) 
the famous spital pulpit, from which, for three hun- 
dred years, sermons were preached at Easter before 
the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and the citizens. It 
is an illustration of English conservatism that long 
after the hospital was demolished, and when the pul- 
pit stood in an ordinary square of private residences, 
the same custom was kept up, with the same official 
attendance of the corporation. 

The Nunnery of St. Helen's became the property 
of the Leathersellers' Company. The nuns' chapel 
still remains forming the north part of a church, which, 
for its antiquity and its monuments, is one of the 
most interesting in London. The nuns' refectory 
formed the Company's Hall until the year 1790, when, 
with its ancient crypt, it was pulled down to make 
way for the present St. Helen's Place. Considerable, 
ruins of the nunnery remained until the same time. 

The Church of the Knights Hospitallers was blown 
up with gunpowder ; its ruins and those of the priory 
buildings remained for many years. The Charter 
House was first given by Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas 
Audley, passed from him to Lord North, to Dudley, 
Duke of Northumberland, to Lord North again, to the 
Duke of Norfolk, to the Crown, to the Earl of Suffolk, 
and to Thomas Sutton. The last transfer was in 161 1. 
Sutton endowed it as a charity under the name of 
the Hospital of King James. This noble foundation 
has ever since existed as a hospital for decayed gen- 
tlemen and a school for boys. Some of the oldTmon- 
astic buildings yet survive in the Charter House. Its 
name of the Hospital of King James has long been 



TUDOR 267 

forgotten. The place has been celebrated by Thack- 
eray, and it is, at this day, the most beautiful and the 
most venerable monument of old London. 

The magnificent Church of the Dominicans, or 
Black Friars, was destroyed. Either the hall of the 
abbey or a portion of the church was used as a store- 
house for the " properties " of pageants — strange fate 
for the house of the Dominicans, those austere up- 
holders of doctrine. A play-house was erected by 
Shakespeare and his friends among the ruins, which 
remained standing for a long- time. Only a few years 
ago the extension of the Times offices in Printing 
House Square brought to light many substantial re- 
mains. The Abbey of Bermondsey furnished materi- 
als and a site for a great house for the Earl of Sussex. 
A tavern was built on the site of the Church of St. 
Martin's le Grand. The Church of St. Bartholomew's 
Priory was pulled down to the choir, which was con- 
verted into a parish church. The bells were put up in 
the tower of St. Sepulchre. The Church of the Grey 
Friars was spared; but as for its monuments — con- 
sider ! There were buried here the queens of Ed- 
ward I. and Edward II., the queen of David Bruce, 
an innumerable company of great lords, nobles, and 
fighting men, with their dames and daughters. The 
place was a Campo Santo of mediaeval worthies. Their 
monuments, Stow writes, " are wholly defaced. There 
were nine tombs of alabaster and marble, environed 
with ' strikes ' of iron, in the choir, and one tomb in 
the body of the church, also coped with iron, all pulled 
down, besides sevenscore gravestones of marble." 
The whole were sold for ^50 or thereabouts by Sir 
Martin Bowes, goldsmith and Alderman of London. 



268 LONDON 

Surely the carved marble and sculptured alabaster did 
not teach the hated papistical superstitions ; yet they 
all went ; and it was with bare walls, probably washed 
white or yellow to hide the frescos, that the building 
became the parish now called Christ Church. The 
monastery buildings were converted into the Bluecoat 
School. 

Such was the fate of the greater houses. Add to 
these the smaller foundations, all whelmed in the 
common destruction ; the colleges, such as that of St. 
Spirit, founded by Whittington ; that founded by 
Walworth; that founded by Richard III., attached 
to Allhallows Barking; St. John's, Holywell; St. 
Thomas of Aeon, a rich foundation with a lovely 
church; the College of Jesus; the Hospital of St. 
Anthony; Jesus Commons; Elsing Spital ; and we 
begin to realize that London was literally a city of 
ruins. 

It is at first hard to understand how there should 
have been, even among the baser sort, so little rever- 
ence for the past, so little regard for art ; that these 
treasure-houses of precious marbles and rare carvings 
should have been rifled and destroyed without raising 
so much as a murmur; nay, that the very buildings 
themselves should have been pulled down without a 
protest. Once only the citizens remonstrated. It 
was in the hope of saving from destruction the lofty 
and most beautiful spire of Austin Friars, but in vain. 
It seems to us impossible that the tombs of so many 
worthies should have been destroyed without the in- 
dignation of all who knew the story of the past. Yet 
in our own day we have seen — nay, we see daily — the 
wanton and useless destruction of ancient buildings. 



TUDOR 269 

Winchester House, which ought to have been kept as 
a national monument, was pulled down in 1839; Sir 
Paul Pinder's house, another unique specimen, van- 
ished only yesterday ; within the last few years a 
dozen city churches have been destroyed, in total dis- 
regard to their historical associations. At this very 
moment the church where John Carpenter, Whitting- 
ton's executor and the founder of the City of London 
school, the church whose site has been consecrated as 
long as that of any church in the city, where King 
Alfred may have worshipped, is standing roofless, 
waiting to make way for offices not wanted. Nay, 
the very city clergy themselves, the official guardians 
of all that is venerable, have, in our own days — the 
actual, living city clergy! — basely sold their most 
beautiful old house, Sion College, and built a new 
and garish place on the Thames Embankment, which 
they call Sion College! It is unfortunately too true 
that there is not, at any time or with any people, rev- 
erence for things venerable, old, and historical, save 
with a few. The greater part are careless of the past, 
unable to see or feel anything but the present. The 
city clergy of to-day are no better than Sir Thomas 
Audrey, Sir Arthur Darcie, and the rest. 

There were other ruins. Cromwell's men were not 
the only zealots against popish monuments, signs, and 
symbols. The parish churches were filled with ruins. 
The carved fonts were defaced ; the side chapels were 
desolate and empty; the altars were stripped ; the rood 
screens were removed ; the roods themselves were 
taken down; the painted walls were whitewashed ; the 
simple service that was read in the vulgar tongue 
seemed to the people at first a ruin of the old mass ; 



270 



LONDON 



the clergyman, called minister or priest, who preached 
in the black gown, was a ruin of the priest in his 
gorgeous robes ; the very doctrines of the Protestant 
faith seemed at first built out of the ruins of the old, 
as the second Temple was built upon the ruins of the 
first, and was but a poor thing in comparison. At 
first only, because the work was thorough, and in a 
single generation all the traditions of the ancient 
faith were lost and forgotten. 

If, indeed, the Reformation was to be carried at all, 
it was necessary, for the prevention of civil war, that 
it should be thorough. Therefore the young genera- 
tion must be made to believe that a return of the old 
things was absolutely impossible ; that the old relig- 
ion could never, under any circumstances, be revived. 
When Queen Mary ascended the throne, the work 
was only half done ; the Protestant faith had not yet 
taken root ; yet when she died, five years later, no 
lamentations were made over the second departure of 
the priests. It is a commonplace that the flames of 
Smithfield, more than the preaching of Latimer, rec- 
onciled the people to the loss of the old religion. I 
do not think that the commonplace is more than half 
true, because the flames were again kindled, and more 
than once, in the reign of Elizabeth without any mur- 
mur from the people. Henceforth the old religion 
was dead indeed, and impossible to be revived. When 
Shakespeare came up to London, he found many who 
could remember the monks — gray, white, and black ; 
the Franciscan — innocent of the old simplicity ; the 
rich and stately Benedictine ; the austere Dominican ; 
the pardoner and the limitour ; the mass, and the 
holy days of the Church ; but we find in Shakes- 



TUDOR 273 

peare's writings no trace of any regret for their dis- 
appearance, or of any desire for their return. The 
past was gone ; even the poetic side of a highly poetic 
time was not touched, or hardly touched, by the sad- 
ness and pathos of this great fall ; the dramatists and 
poets have made nothing out of it. 

The people lived among the ruins but regarded 
them not, any more than the vigorous growth within 
the court of a roofless Norman castle regards the don- 
jon and the walls. They did not inquire into the 
history of the ruins; they did not want to preserve 
them ; they took away the stones and sold them for 
new buildings. 

It was very remarkable and very fitting that on the 
site of the Grey Friars' House should be erected a great 
school. The teaching of the new thought was estab- 
lished in the place where those dwelt who had been 
the most stalwart defenders of the old. It was also 
very remarkable and very fitting that within the walls 
of Black Friars' Abbey, the home of austerity and 
authority, should rise a play-house for the dramas of 
free thought and human passion. It was further re- 
markable and very fitting that the house of the Car- 
thusian monks, those who had fled from the work, and 
war, and temptations of the world, those who, while 
yet living, were already dead, should be converted 
into a home for those who were broken down and 
spent with that very work and war, a place where 
they could meditate in their old age over the storm 
and struggle of the past. 

Once arrived at the second half of the sixteenth 
century we are in modern times. We have maps, 
surveys, descriptions of the city ; we have literature in 



274 LONDON 

plenty to illustrate the manners of the time. There 
is no longer any doubt upon any point. The daily 
life of London under Elizabeth and the first James 
may be learned in all its details, by any one who will 
take the trouble to read, as easily as the daily life in 
our own time. Perhaps more easily, because things 
which are so trivial and yet mean so much are passed 
over or taken for granted in the literature of our day. 
But let no one be content with reading the modern 
books upon the Elizabethan period. They contain a 
great deal, but the literature of the time itself is a 
storehouse, into which every one who wishes, however 
lightly, to study the time should look for himself. 
And it is a storehouse so full that no man can hope 
to exhaust though he could carry out of it load upon 
load of treasure. 

Before me hangs a fac-simile of the map made by 
Ralph Agas. " Civitas Londinium." One remarks 
first, that the part lying south of Chepe is still the 
most crowded, yet not so crowded that there are no 
open spaces. Between Size Lane, for instance, and 
Walbrook is a great garden. Behind Whittington 
College is a large open court, which was also certainly 
a garden. There are gardens in Blackfriars of which 
the only remains at the present day are the pretty 
little square called Wardrobe Court and the tiny gar- 
den — I believe there is still one other garden left — at 
the back of the rectory of St. Andrew's. North of 
Chepe the streets are wider, and the open spaces larger 
and more frequent. At Grey Friars, already the Blue- 
coat School, the courts of the monastery are yet stand- 
ing with the church, and the great garden still stretch- 
es unto the city wall ; in the corner of the wall, where 



TUUOR 277 

is now Monkwell Street, with Barber Surgeon's Hall, 
is a fine large garden. On either side of Coleman 
Street there are very extensive gardens ; those on the 
west belonged to the Augustine Friars, the last rem- 
nant of which, the Drapers' Garden, was built over a 
few years ago to the enrichment of the Company and 
the loss of the city. Some part of the gardens of the 
Holy Trinity Priory remain. There are gardens and 
trees and an open space within Aldgate ; and an open 
court, or series of courts, where had been the nunnery 
of St. Helen's. Without the walls, on the east, East 
Smithfield is a large field, with paths across. The 
sites of New Abbey and the convent of the Clare Sis- 
ters are marked by courts and gardens. Houses stand 
north and south along the Whitechapel Road, but not 
far ; a single row of houses runs along Hound's ditch 
from Aldgate to Bishopsgate. Without the latter 
there is a line of houses as far as Shoreditch Church, 
and here the open country begins. Finsbury and 
Moorfields are to a great extent divided up into gar- 
dens, each with its house, reminding one of Stubbes's 
complaint against the citizens' wives and daughters, 
that they use their husbands' gardens outside the 
walls for purposes of intrigue. All round the north 
and east of the city the people could step out of the 
gates into the country. Except the houses of Bish- 
opsgate Without and the Whitechapel Road, there 
was nothing but fields and open ground. Around 
St. Giles, Cripplegate, however, we find a suburb al- 
ready populous. About Smithfield the houses gather 
thickly. We observe the familiar names of Little 
Britain, Pye Corner, Cock Lane, and Hoosier Lane. 

Holborn, with gardens on the north, has a double line 
18* 



278 LONDON 

of houses as far as Chancery Lane. Where is now 
Blackfriars Bridge Road stood the palace of Bridewell, 
with its two square courts and its gabled front facing 
the river. Whitefriars is partly built upon, but some 
of the courts and gardens remain. The lawns of the 
Temple, planted with elms, slope down to the river, 
and these were followed westward by the palaces 
along the Strand — Exeter House, Arundel House, the 
Bishop of Llandaff's house, Somerset House, the Sa- 
voy, Bedford House, Cecil House, Northumberland 
House, and the rest, of which Somerset House alone 
remains, and that in altered guise. There are no 
docks as yet. The lading and the unlading of the 
ships continued almost until this century to be done 
in the Pool below London Bridge by barges and 
lighters. 

In considering the people of London in the time of 
good Queen Bess one is forced to put the poets and 
dramatists first, because they are the chief glory of 
this wonderful reign. Yet such a harvest could only 
spring from a fruitful soil. Of such temper as were 
the poets, so also — so courageous, so hopeful, so con- 
fident — were the inarticulate mass for whom they 
sang and spoke. Behind Kit Marlowe, Greene, and 
Peele were the turbulent youth, prodigal of life, eager 
for joy, delighting in feast and song, always ready for 
a fight, extravagant in speech and thought, jubilant in 
their freedom from the tyranny of the Church. Be- 
hind Spenser and Sydney were the cultivated class, 
whose culture has never been surpassed. Behind 
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Massenger, and Beaumont, 
and the rest were the people of all conditions, from 
Gloriana herself down to Bardolph and Doll. We 



TUDOR 279 

can only get at the people through those who write 
about them. Therefore we must needs say some- 
thing about the Elizabethan poets. 

Fortunately there are plenty of them. In propor- 
tion to the population, far, very far more than we 
have even at the present day, when every year the 
reviews find it necessary to cry out over the increas- 
ing tide of new books. Of poets, in what other age 
could the historian enumerate forty of the higher and 
nearly two hundred of the lower rank? Of the forty, 
most are well remembered and read even to the pres- 
ent day ; for instance, Chapman, Giles and Phineas 
Fletcher, Robert Greene, Marston, Sackville, Sylvester, 
Donne, Drayton, Drummond, Gascoigne, Marlowe, Ra- 
leigh, Spenser, Wither, may be taken as poets still 
read and loved, while the list does not include Shakes- 
peare and the dramatists. Nearly two hundred and 
forty poets! Why, with a population of a hundred 
millions of English-speaking people now in the world, 
we have not a half or a sixth of that number, while in 
the same proportion we should have to equal in num- 
ber the Elizabethan singers — about 5000. But in that 
age every gentleman wrote verse ; the cultivation of 
poetry was like the cultivation of music. Every man 
could play an instrument ; every man could take his 
part in a glee or madrigal ; so, also, every man could 
turn his set of verses, with the result of a fine and 
perfect flower of poetry which has never been sur- 
passed. 

But they were not only poets. They had every 
kind of literature in far greater abundance, consider- 
ing the small number of educated people, than exists 
in our own time, and in as great variety. Consider! 



280 LONDON 

There are now scattered over the whole world a hun- 
dred millions of English-speaking people, of whom at 
least five-sixths read something, if it is only a penny 
newspaper, and at least a half read books of some 
kind. In Elizabeth's reign there were about six mill- 
ions, of whom more than half could not read at all. 
The reading public of Great Britain and Ireland, con- 
sidered with regard to numbers, resembled what is 
now found in Holland, Norway, or Denmark. Yet 
from so small a people came this mass of literature, 
great, varied, and immortal. 

In the matter of fiction alone they were already 
rich. There were knightly books: the Morte d' Arthur, 
the Seven CJiampions, Amadis of Gaul, Godfrey of 
Bouillon, Palmerin of England, and many more. There 
were story-books, as the Seven Wise Masters, the Gesta 
Romanoruni, the Amorous Fiannnetta, the jest books 
of Skogin, Tarleton, Hobson, Skelton, Peele, and oth- 
ers. There was the famous Euphues, Sidney's Ar- 
cadia, all the pastoral romances, and the " picaresque " 
novels of Nash and Dekker. Then there were the 
historians and chroniclers, as Stow, Camden, Speed, 
Holinshed ; the essayists, as Sir Thomas Browne, 
Ascham, Bacon ; the theologians, of whom there were 
hundreds ; the satirists, as Bishop Hall and Marston ; 
the writers of what we should call light literature — 
Greene, Nash, Peele, and Dekker. And there were 
translations, as from the Italian, Boccaccio, Ariosto, 
Biondello, Tasso, and others ; from the French, Frois- 
sart, Montaigne, Plutarch (Amyot), the Cent Nouvcllcs 
Nouvelles (in the Hundred Merry Tales), and the sto- 
ries of the Forest and the Palace of Pleasure. And 
there were all the dramatists. Never before or since 



TUDOR 28l 

has the country been better supplied with new litera- 
ture and good books. 

Remember, again, everything was new. All the 
books were new; the printing-press was new; you 
could almost count the volumes that had been issued. 
It was reckoned a great thing for Dr. Dee to have 
three thousand printed books. Every scholar found 
a classic which had not been translated, and took him 
in hand. Every traveller brought home some modern 
writer, chiefly Italian, previously unknown. Every 
sailor brought home the record of a voyage to un- 
known seas and to unknown shores. It was a time 
when the world had become suddenly conscious of a 
vast, an inconceivable widening, the results of which 
could not yet be foretold. But the knowledge filled 
men with such hopes as had never before been expe- 
rienced. Scholars and poets, merchants and sailors, 
rovers and adventurers, all alike were moved by the 
passion and ecstasy of the time. Strange time ! Won- 
derful time ! We who read the history of that time too 
often confine our attention to the political history. We 
are able, with the help of Froude, quite clearly to un- 
derstand the perplexities and troubles of the Maiden 
Queen ; we see her, in her anxiety, playing off Span- 
iard against Frenchman, to avoid destruction should 
they act together. But the people know and suspect 
none of these things. State affairs are too high for 
them. They only see the brightness of the sky and 
the promise of the day ; they only feel the quickening 
influence of the spring ; their blood is fired ; they 
have got new hopes, a new faith, new openings, new 
learning. And they bear themselves accordingly. 
That is to say, with extravagances innumerable, with 



282 LONDON 

confidence and courage lofty, unexampled. Why, it 
fires the blood of this degenerate time only to think 
of the mighty enlargement of that time. When one 
considers when they lived and what they talked, one 
understands Kit Marlowe and Robert Greene, and 
that wild company of scholars and poets; they would 
cram into whatever narrow span of life was granted 
them all — all — all — that life can give of learning and 
poetry, and feasting and love and joy. They were 
intoxicated with the ideas of their time. They were 
weighed down with the sheaves — the golden harvest 
of that wondrous reaping. Who would not live in 
such a time? The little world had become, almost 
suddenly, very large, inconceivably large. The boys 
of London, playing about the river stairs and the 
quays, listened to the talk of men who had sailed 
along those newly-discovered coasts of the new great 
world, and had seen strange monsters and wild people. 
In the taverns men — bearded, bronzed, scarred — grave 
men, with deep eyes and low voice, who had sailed to 
the Guinea coast, round the Cape to Hindostan, across 
the Spanish Main, over the ocean to Virginia, sat in 
the tavern and told to youths with flushed cheeks and 
panting, eager breath queer tales of danger and es- 
cape between their cups of sack. We were not yet 
advanced beyond believing in the Ethiopian with 
four eyes, the Arimaspi with one eye, the Hippopodes 
or Centaurs, the Monopoli, or men who have no head, 
but carry their faces in their breasts and their eyes in 
their shoulders. None of these monsters, it is true, 
had ever been caught and brought home; but many 
an honest fellow, if hard pressed by his hearers, would 
reluctantly confess to having seen them. On the 





C5 ? aj T !fl T\ 4J*#'F z -jer**>to -'"for <•">'''■ ''™^#04^P ; H I wii 







BURGHLEY HOUSE 



TUDOR 285 

other hand, negroes and red Indians were frequently 
brought home and exhibited. And there were croco- 
diles, alive or stuffed ; crocodiles' skins, the skins of 
bears and lions, monkeys, parrots, flying- fish dried, 
and other curious things. And there were always the 
legends — that of the land of gold, the Eldorado ; that 
of the kingdom of Prester John ; that of St. Brandan's 
Island; and, but this was later, the theory — proved 
with mathematical certainty — of the great southern 
continent. Enough, and more than enough, to in- 
flame the imagination of adventurers, to drive the 
lads aboard ship, to make them long for the sails to 
be spread and to be making their way anywhere — 
anywhere — in search of adventure, conquest, glory, 
and gold. 

Such an enlargement, such hopes, can never again 
return to the world. That is impossible, save on one 
chance. We cannot make the world any wider ; by 
this time we know it nearly all ; the pristine mystery 
— the awfulness of the unknown — has wellnigh gone 
out of every land, even New Guinea and Central 
Africa. Yet there is this one chance. Science may 
and will widen the world — -for her own disciples — in 
many new and unexpected ways. The sluggish imag- 
ination of the majority is little touched even by such 
marvels as the electric telegraph, the phonograph, the 
telephone. For them science in any form cannot en- 
large their boundaries. Suppose, however, a thing to 
be achieved which should go right home to the com- 
prehension, brain, and heart of every living man. Sup- 
pose that science should prevent, conquer, and annihi- 
late disease. Suppose our span of life enlarged to two 
hundred, three hundred, five hundred years, and that 



286 LONDON 

suddenly. Think of the wild exaltations, the extrava- 
gances, the prodigalities, the omnivorous attempts of 
the scholar, the universal grasp of the physicist, the 
amazing and audacious experiments of chemist, elec- 
trician, biologist, and the long reach of the statesman ! 
Think of these things, I say, and remember that in the 
age of Elizabeth, of Raleigh, Drake, Marlowe, Nash, 
Greene, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, Bacon, and 
the rest similar causes produced similar effects. 

We have seen the development of the mediaeval 
house from the simple common hall. The Elizabethan 
house shows an immense advance in architecture. I 
believe that the noblest specimen now remaining is 
Burghley House in Northamptonshire, built by Cecil, 
Lord Burghley and first Earl of Exeter. The house 
is built about a square court. The west front has a 
lofty square tower. Let us, with Burghley House be- 
fore us, read what Bacon directs as to building. The 
front, he says, must have a tower, with a wing on either 
side. That on the right was to consist of nothing but 
a " goodly room of some forty feet high " — he does not 
give the length — " and under it a room for dressing or 
preparing place at times of triumphs." By triumphs 
he means pageants, mummings, and masques. "On 
the other side, which is the household side, I wish it 
divided at the first into a hall and a chapel (with a 
partition between), both of good state and bigness. 
And these not to go all the length, but to have at the 
further end a winter and a summer parlor, both fair." 
Here are to be the cellars, kitchens, butteries, and 
pantries. " Beyond this front is to be a fair court, 
but three sides of it of a far lower building than the 



TUDOR 



287 



front. And in all the four corners of the court fair 
staircases, cast into turrets on the outside, and not 
within the row of buildings themselves. . . . Let the 
court not be paved, for that striketh up a great heat 
in summer and much cold in winter. But only some 







,^vf ; ft 



-■y,^,-y-:m^ 






ILFORD ALMSHOUSES 



side alleys with a cross, and the quarters to graze 
being kept shorn, but not too near shorn." Stately gal- 
leries with colored windows are to run along the ban- 
quet side ; on the household side, " chambers of pres- 
ence and ordinary entertainments, with bedchambers." 
Beyond this court is to be a second of the same square, 
with a garden and a cloister. Other directions he 
gives which, if they were carried out, would make a 
very fine house indeed. But these we may pass over. 



288 LONDON 

In short, Bacon's idea of a good house was much like 
a college. That of Clare, Cambridge, for instance, 
would have been considered by Bacon as a very good 
house indeed, though the arrangement of the banquet- 
ing-room was not exactly as the philosopher would 
have it. The College of Christ's in its old form, with 
the garden square beyond, was still more after the 
manner recommended by Bacon. 

It will be seen that we are now a good way re- 
moved from the Saxon Hall with the people sleeping 
on the floor, yet Bacon's house lineally descends from 
that beginning. All the old houses in London were 
built in this way, as may be illustrated by many 
which retain the old form, as well as by those which 
remain. Hampton Court, for instance, built by Wol- 
sey ; Northumberland House, recently taken down; 
Gresham House, taken down a hundred years ago ; 
Somerset House, still standing, though much altered ; 
the old Navy Office, the court of which still remains ; 
some of the old almshouses, notably Trinity Alms- 
house, in the Whitechapel Road ; Emanuel, Westmin- 
ster ; and the Norfolk Hospital, Greenwich, Gray's 
Inn, Clifford's Inn, Staple Inn, Barnard's Inn — which 
contains the oldest house in London — are admirable 
specimens of Bacon's house ; while in the old taverns, 
of which a few imperfect specimens still exist, we 
have the galleries which Bacon would construct with- 
in his court. 

In the reign of Elizabeth, while the merchants were 
growing richer and increasing in number and in 
wealth, the great nobles were gradually leaving the 
city. Those who remained kept up but a remnant of 
their former splendor. Elizabeth refused license for 



TUDOR 



289 



the immense number of retainers formerly allowed ; 
she would suffer a hundred at the most. It was a 
time rather for the rise of new families than the con- 
tinued greatness of the old. The nobles, as they went 
away, sold their London houses to the citizens. Thus 
Winchester House and Crosby Hall went to mer- 




OLD TAVERN 



chants; Derby House to the College of Heralds; 
Cold Harbor was pulled down in 1590, and its site 
built over with tenements; the Duke of Norfolk's 
house, on the site of Holy Trinity Priory, was shortly 
after destroyed, and the place assigned to the newly- 
arrived colony of Jews. Barnard's Castle alone among 
the city palaces remained in the possession of a great 
noble until the fire came and swept it away. 

Great beyond all precedent was the advance of 
trade in this golden age. Elizabeth was wise and 
wisely advised in the treatment of the City and the 
19 



29O LONDON 

merchants. Perhaps she followed the example of 
King Edward the Fourth. Perhaps she remembered 
(but this I doubt) that she belonged to the City by 
her mother's side, for her great-grandfather, Sir Geof- 
frey Boleyn, had been Lord Mayor a hundred years 
before her accession. But the rapid growth of Lon- 
don trade seems to me chiefly due to the wisdom of 
one man — Sir Thomas Gresham. 

This great man, even more than Whittington, is the 
typical London merchant. Not a self-made man at 
all, but coming of a good old country stock — always 
a master, always of the class which commands. Near- 
ly all the great London merchants have, as has already 
been stated, belonged to that class. His family came 
originally from Gresham, in Norfolk ; his father, Sir 
Richard, was Lord Mayor; his uncle, Sir John, also 
Lord Mayor, saved Bethlehem Hospital at the disso- 
lution of the religious houses. Not a poor and friend- 
less lad, by any means ; from the outset he had every 
advantage that wealth and station can afford. He 
was educated at GonviHe (afterwards Gonville and 
Caius) College, Cambridge. It was not until he had 
taken his degree that he was apprenticed to his uncle, 
and he was past twenty- four when he was received 
into the Mercers' Company. 

When he was thirty-two years of age a thing hap- 
pened to Thomas Gresham which proved to be the 
most fortunate chance that ever came to the City of 
London. He was appointed Royal Agent at Ant- 
werp. The King's loans were at that time always of- 
fered at Antwerp or Bruges, and were taken up by 
merchants of the Low Countries at the enormous in- 
terest of 14 per cent. Sometimes a part of the ad- 




FRONT OF SIR PAUL 



FINDER'S HOUSE, ON THE WEST SIDE OF BISHOPSGATE STREET 
WITHOUT 



TUDOR 293 

vance had to take the form of jewels. At this time 
the annual interest on the debt amounted to £40,000 ; 
and while the exchange was sixteen Flemish shillings 
to the pound sterling, the agent had to pay in English 
money. The post, therefore, was not an easy one to 
fill. 

Gresham, however, reduced the interest from 14 per 
cent, to 12, or even 10 per cent. He suppressed the 
jewels, and took the whole of the loan in money ; and 
he continued to enjoy the confidence of Edward's 
ministers, of Queen Mary, and of Queen Elizabeth. 
In order to effect this, he must have been a most able 
and honest servant, or else a most supple courtier. 
He was the former. Now, had he done nothing more 
than played the part of Royal Agent better than any 
one who went before him, he might have been as 
much forgotten as his predecessors. But he did much 
more. The City owes to Gresham a debt of gratitude 
impossible to be repaid. This is a foolish sentence, 
because gratitude can never be repaid. You may al- 
ways entertain and nourish gratitude, and you can do 
service in return, but gratitude remains. A great ser- 
vice once received is a possession forever, and gener- 
ally a fruitful and growing possession. 

When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne the 
commercial centre of the world was Antwerp ; when 
she died, the commercial centre of the world was 
London. This transfer had been effected by the wis- 
dom and foresight of one man taking advantage of 
the times and their chances. The religious wars of 
the Netherlands brought immense losses to Antwerp. 
These losses Gresham desired to make London's gains. 

But he was met with the initial difficulty that the 
19* 



294 



LONDON 



merchants of London had not yet learned to act to- 
gether. They had, it is true, the old trading company 
of merchant adventurers, but that stood alone ; be- 
sides, its ambitions were modest. They had no expe- 
rience in union ; there was no central institution which 
should be the city's brain, the place where the mer- 
chants could meet and receive news and consult to- 
gether. Now, at Antwerp there was a goodly Bourse. 
What if London could also have its Bourse? 

Well, Gresham built a Bourse ; he gave it to the 
city ; he formed this place of meeting for the mer- 
chants ; the Queen opened it, and called it the Royal 
Exchange. The possession of the Exchange was fol- 
lowed immediately by such a development of enter- 
prise as had been unknown before in the history of 
the City. Next he persuaded the citizens to take up 
the Queen's loans themselves, so that the interest, at 
12 per cent., should remain in the country. He showed 
his own people how to take advantage of Antwerp's 
disasters and to divert her trade to the port of Lon- 
don. As for his Bourse, it stood on the site of the 
present Royal Exchange, but the front was south in 
Cornhill. The west front was blocked up by houses. 
The building was of brick and mortar, three stories 
high, with dormer windows in the high-pitched roof. 
At every corner was a pinnacle surmounted by a 
grasshopper — the Gresham crest. On the south side 
rose a lofty tower with a bell, which called the mer- 
chants together at noon in the morning and at six in 
the evening. Within was an open court surrounded 
by covered walks, adorned with statues of kings, be- 
hind which were shops rented by milliners, haberdash- 
ers, and sellers of trifles. This was the lower pawne. 



TUDOR 



295 



Above, in the upper pawne, there were armorers, 
apothecaries, book-sellers, goldsmiths, and glass-sellers. 
The Bourse was opened by Queen Elizabeth on Janu- 
ary 23, 1 571. She changed its name from the Bourse 
to the Royal Exchange. When it was destroyed in 
the fire of 1666, it was observed that all the statues 
were destroyed, except that of Gresham himself. 










m I ECTj'I :,it;l,'!' ! !'. 



THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, COKNHILL 



To illustrate this increase in English trade, we have 
these facts : In the reign of Edward VI., a time of 
great decay, there were few Merchant Adventurers 
and hardly any English ships. When Elizabeth be- 
gan to reign there were no more than 317 merchants 
in all, of whom the Company of Mercers* formed 
ninety-nine. Before her reign it was next to impossi- 



296 LONDON 

ble for the city to raise a loan of ,£10,000. Before 
she died the city was advancing to the Queen loans 
of ^60,000. Before her reign the only foreign trade 
was a venture or two into Russia ; everything came 
across from Antwerp and Sluys. During her reign 
the foreign trade was developed in an amazing man- 
ner. New commodities were exported, as beer and 
sea coal, a great many new things were introduced — 
new trades, new luxuries. For instance, apricots, tur- 
keys, hops, tobacco were brought over and planted 
and naturalized. Fans, ladies' wigs, fine knives, pins, 
needles, earthen fire -pots, silk and crystal buttons, 
shoe-buckles, glass-making, nails, paper were made in 
this country for the first time. The Merchant Advent- 
urers, who had been incorporated under Edward I., 
obtained fresh rights and larger powers ; they obtained 
the abolition of the privileges enjoyed for three hun- 
dred years by the Hanseatic merchant ; they estab- 
lished courts at Antwerp, Dordrecht, and Hamburg ; 
they had houses at York, Hull, and Newcastle. Fur- 
ther, when we read that they exported wine, oil, silks, 
and fruits, in addition to the products of the country, 
it is clear that they had already obtained some of the 
carrying trade of the world. Of the trading compa- 
nies founded under Elizabeth and her successors, only 
one now survives. . Yet the whole trade of this coun- 
try was created by these companies. 

Who, for instance, now remembers the Eastland 
Company, or Merchants of Elbing? Yet they had a 
long existence as a company ; and long after their 
commercial life was gone they used to elect their offi- 
cers every year, and hold a feast. Perhaps they do 
still. Their trade was with the Baltic. Or the Rus- 



TUDOR 297 

sian Company ? That sprang out of a company called 
the " Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of 
Lands not before known to or frequented by the 
English." 

This company sent out Sir Hugh Willoughby, with 
three ships, to find a north-east passage to China. 
But Sir Hugh was forced to put in at a port in Rus- 
sian Lapland, where he and all his men were frozen 
to death. The Russion Company became whalers, 
and quarrelled with the Dutch over the fishing. It 
had a checkered career, and finally died, but, like the 
Eastland Company, it continued to elect officers and 
to dine together long after its work was over. Or the 
Turkey Company, which lasted from 1586 to 1825, 
when it dissolved ? Or the Royal African Company, 
which lived from 1530 to 1821 ? There were, also, 
the Merchants of Spain ; the French Merchants ; the 
Merchants of Virginia ; the East India Company, the 
greatest and most powerful of any trading company 
ever formed ; the Hudson Bay Company, which still 
exists ; the South Sea Company ; the Guinea Compa- 
ny ; the Canary Company. Some of these belong to 
a later period, but they speak of the spirit of the en- 
terprise and adventure first awakened under Elizabeth. 

In the Church of St. Martin Outwich, now pulled 
down, was a monument to the chief actor in the pro- 
motion of these trading companies. " Here," said 
the tombstone, " resteth the body of the worshipful 
Mr. Richard Staple, elected Alderman of this city 
1584. He was the greatest Merchant in his time ; the 
chiefest Actor in the Discovery of the Trade of Tur- 
key and East India; a man humble in prosperity, 
painful and ever ready in affairs public, and discreetly 



298 LONDON 

careful of his private. A liberal house-keeper, bounti- 
ful to the Poor, an upright dealer in the world, and a 
devout inquirer after the world to come. . . . Intravit 
ut exiret." 

The increase of trade had another side. It was ac- 
companied by protection, with the usual results. " In 
the old days," says Harrison, " when strange bottoms 
were suffered to come in, we had sugar for fourpence 
the pound that now is worth half a crown ; raisins 
and currants for a pennie that now are holden at six- 
pence, and sometimes at eightpence and tenpence, the 
pound; nutmegs at twopence halfpenny the ounce; 
ginger at a pennie the ounce ; prunes at a halfpenny 
farthing; great raisins, three pound for a pennie; cin- 
namon at fourpence the ounce ; cloves at twopence ; 
and pepper at twelve or sixteen pence the pound." 
He does not state the increase in price of the latter 
articles; but if we are to judge by that of sugar, the 
increase of trade was not an unmixed blessing to 
those whose incomes had not advanced with equal 
step. 

The city associated the new prosperity with their 
Maiden Queen, for whom their love and loyalty never 
abated in the least. When she asked them for a cer- 
tain number of ships they sent double the number, 
fully manned and provided ; when the Queen's enemy, 
Mary of Scotland, was beheaded, they rang their bells 
and made bonfires ; while the Queen was living they 
thanked God solemnly for her long reign ; when she 
died, their lamentations were loud and sincere ; her 
monument, until the fire, adorned many of the city 
churches. One of the Elizabeth statues yet remains 
outside the Church of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street. It 




1 :'M 
i . ftp 



TUDOR 301 

is the statue which formerly stood on the west side 
of Lud Gate. 

To return to Gresham. He not only gave the city 
a Bourse, but he also endowed it with a college, which 
should have been a rival of Trinity or Christ Church 
but for the mismanagement which reduced it for a 
long time to the level of a lecture institute. The idea 
of the founder will, no doubt, be revived some time 
or other, and Gresham College will become a place of 
learning worthy of the city. 

The career of Sir Thomas Gresham strangely re- 
sembles that of Whittington. Both were favorites 
with successive sovereigns. If Gresham built an Ex- 
change, Whittington, by his will, added to Guildhall ; 
if Gresham founded a college for the London youth, 
Whittington founded a college for priests, and an 
almshouse ; if Gresham restored the finances of his 
sovereign, Whittington gave back to his the bonds of 
all his debts. Both were mercers ; both merchant ad- 
venturers ; both kept a shop ; both were of good de- 
scent. 

Gresham's shop was in Lombard Street, at the Sign 
of the Grasshopper, his family crest. His shop con- 
tained gold and silver vessels ; coins, ancient and 
modern ; gold chains, gold and silver lace, rings, and 
jewels. He lent money, as most bankers do, on se- 
curity, but he got 10 and 12 per cent, for it. He had 
correspondents abroad, and he gave travellers letters 
of credit ; he bought foreign coin either to exchange 
or to melt down. And he lived in his own house, 
over his shop, until he was knighted, when he built a 
new house between Bishopsgate Street and Broad 
Street. Stow calls it " the most spacious of all there- 



302 



LONDON 




COLLEGII GRESHAMENSIS A LATERE OCCIDENTALI PROSPECTUS, A.D. 1739 



about ; builded of brick and timber." This house be- 
came afterwards Gresham College. 

Again, this was a great age for the foundation of 
grammar-schools. The education of London in the 
Middle Ages is a subject which has never yet been 
adequately treated. We know very well what was 
taught at the universities. But what did the merchant 
learn, the shopkeeper, the craftsman ? To what school 
was the boy sent before he was apprenticed ? There 
was a school, it is said, to every religious house. I 
think that latterly the monastic school was kept up 
with about as much sincerity as the monastic rule of 
poverty. Stow certainly says that when Henry V. 
dissolved the alien priories, their schools perished as 



TUDOR 303 

well. On the other hand, consider the great number 
of religious houses in and around London. There 
should have been schools enough for the whole popu- 
lation. Yet Henry VI. founded four grammar-schools 
"besides St. Paul's," viz., at St. Martin's le Grand, 
St. Mary le Bow, St. Dunstan's in the west, and St. 
Anthony's. Why did he do this if there were already 
plenty of schools? And observe that one of his foun- 
dations was at a religious house — St. Martin's. The 
year after he created four more schools. — at St. An- 
thony's (Holborn), All Hallows the Great, St. Peter's 
(Cornhill), and St. Thomas of Aeon. All these schools 
perished in the Reformation, with the exception of 
St. Paul's and St. Anthony's. Why they perished, 
unless they were endowed with property belonging to 
some monastic house, is not clear. 

For a time the city had no schools, no hospitals, no 
foundations for the poor, the sick, or the aged. These 
grievous losses were speedily amended. St. Paul's 
was presently newly founded by Dean Colet. The 
Blue-Coat School arose on the ruins of the Grey Fri- 
ars. The Mercers' Company continued the School of 
St. Thomas as their own, and it still exists. The Mer- 
chant Taylors founded their school, which is now at 
the Charterhouse. At St. Olave's and St. Saviour's 
schools were established. A few years later was 
founded the Charterhouse School, which is now re- 
moved to Godalming. 

In these narrow limits it is impossible to reproduce 
much of the Elizabethan daily life. Here, however, 
are certain details. 

The ordering of the household was strict. Servants 
and apprentices were up at six in the summer and at 



304 LONDON 

seven in the winter. No one, on any pretence, except 
that of illness, was to absent himself from morning 
and evening prayers ; there was to be no striking, no 
profane language. Sunday was clean-shirt day. Din- 
ner was at eleven, supper at six. There was no pub- 
lic or private office which was not provided with a 
Bible. In the better classes there was a general en- 
thusiasm for learning of all kinds. The ladies, imitat- 
ing the example of the Queen, practised embroidery, 
wrote beautifully, played curious instruments, knew 
how to sing in parts, dressed with as much magnifi- 
cence as they could afford, danced corantoes and la- 
voltas as well as the simple hey, and studied languages 
— Latin, Greek, and Italian. The last was the favor- 
ite language. Many collected books. Dr. John Dee 
had as many as four thousand, of which one thousand 
were manuscripts. They were arranged on the shelves 
with the leaves turned outward, not the backs. This 
was to show the gilding, the gold clasps, and the silk- 
en strings. The books were bound with great care 
and cost ; everybody knows the beauty of the type 
used in the printing. 

Tournaments were maintained until the end of 
Elizabeth's reign. But we hear little of them, and it 
is not likely that they retained much of their old pop- 
ularity. One Sir Henry Lee entered the tilt-yard 
every year until age prevented him. They always 
kept up the sport of tilting at the Quintain in the 
water. But their favorite amusements were the pag- 
eant and the play. The pageant came before the 
play ; and while the latter was performed on a rough 
scaffold in an inn-yard, the former was provided with 
splendid dresses, music, songs, and properties of every 



TUDOR 



305 



kind. There were pageants for the reception of the 
King when he made a procession into the City ; there 
were court pageants; there were private pageants in 
great men's houses ; there were pageants got up by 
companies. The reception pageants, for instance, are 
very well illustrated by that invented for Queen Eliz- 
abeth on her visit to the city in the year 1558. 

It was in January, but I think people felt cold 
weather less in those days. The Queen came by wa- 
ter, attended by the city barges, which were trimmed 
with targets and banners of their mysteries, from 
Westminster to the Tower, where she lay for two 
days. She then rode through the City, starting at 
two in the afternoon, when everybody had had dinner. 

In Fenchurch Street there 
was a scaffold, where was a 
band of music, and a child 
who presented the Queen 
with a poetical address. 

At the upper end of Grace- 
church Street a noble arch 
had been erected, with a 
triple stage. On the lowest 
stood two children, repre- 
senting Henry VII. and Eliz- 
abeth of York ; on the sec- 
ond, two more, for Henry 
VIII. and Anne Boleyn ; 
and on the third, Queen 
Elizabeth herself. Music 
and a poetical address. 

At Cornhill there was another pageant, representing 
the Queen placed on a seat supported by four figures, 
20 




CURIOUS PUMP 



306 LONDON 

viz., Religion, Wisdom, Justice, and Love, each of 
which was treading under foot the opposite vice. 
Music and a poetical address. 

At the entrance of Cheapside a third pageant rep- 
resented the eight beatitudes. 

At the Conduit a fourth pageant displayed two 
mountains ; one, ragged and stony, with a withered 
tree, under which sat one in homely garb ; over her 
head was a tablet with the legend, " Respublica rui- 
nosa." The other hill was fair and green, with a flour- 
ishing tree, and the words, " Respublica bene insti- 
tuta." Between the hills was a cave, out of which 
issued Time, with his wings, scythe, and forelock 
quite complete, leading a maiden in white silk, on 
whose head was written Tcmporis Filia, and on her 
breast Veritas. This fair damsel held a Bible in her 
hand, which she let down by a silken thread to the 
Queen. 

At the Conduit in Fleet Street they had erected a 
stage with four towers, on which was a throne under 
a palm-tree. On the throne sat Deborah, " Judge and 
Restorer of the House of Israel." On the steps of 
the throne stood six personages, two of them repre- 
senting the nobility, two the clergy, and two the com- 
mons. At Temple Bar they had two giants, Gogma- 
gog and Albion, and Corineus, the Briton. On the 
south side was a " noise " of singing children, one of 
whom, attired as a poet, bade the Queen farewell in 
the name of the City. 

The court pageants may be understood by reading 
the masques of Ben Jonson. Everything costly, 
splendid, and precious was lavished upon these shows. 
Everything that machinery could contrive was de- 



TUDOR 307 

vised for them. Ben Jonson himself, speaking of the 
performance of his " Hymenaea," says : " Such was 
the exquisite performance, as, besides the pomp, 
splendor, or what we may call apparelling of such pre- 
sentments, that alone, had all else been absent, was of 
power to surprise with delight, and steal away the 
spectators from themselves. Nor was there wanting 
whatsoever might give to the furniture or complement, 
either in riches, or strangeness of the habits, delicacy 
of dances, magnificence of the scene, or divine rapture 
of musick. Only the envy was that it lasted not still." 

It was not until 1570 that the first theatre was built. 
The popularity of the play had already begun to grow 
with amazing rapidity. In twenty years there were 
five theatres, with performances every day. The 
Queen had four companies of children trained to per- 
form, viz., the children of St. Paul's, the children of 
the chapel, the children of Westminster, and the chil- 
dren of Windsor. The public actors, too, were often 
called upon to perform before the Queen. 

These companies were : Lord Leicester's company, 
Sir Robert Lane's, Lord Clinton's, Lord Warwick's, 
the Lord Chamberlain's, the Earl of Sussex's, Lord 
Howard's, the Earl of Essex's, Lord Strange's, the 
Earl of Derby's, the Lord Admiral's, the Earl of 
Hertford's, and Lord Pembroke's. It is not supposed 
that all these companies existed at the same time ; 
but the list shows how company after company was 
begun and maintained on the credit of some great 
lord. 

The theatres at the end of the sixteenth century 
were seven in number — the Globe, at Bankside ; the 
Red Bull, in St. John Street; the Curtain, in Shore- 



308 LONDON 

ditch ; the Fortune, in Whitecross Street. These four 
were public theatres. The other three were called 
private houses — the Blackfriars, the Whitefriars, and * 
the Cockpit or Phcenix Theatre. In the next chapter 
we shall assist at a matinee of one of Shakespeare's 
plays. 

But the people lost no opportunity of " making up," 
acting, and dancing. The pageant became more and 
more a play. There were pageants of more or less 
splendor — we all know the great pageants of Kenil- 
worth — held in every great man's house, in every 
company's hall, and in private persons' houses, to 
mark every possible occasion. Thus, in the year 1 562, 
on July 20, took place the marriage of one Coke, citi- 
zen (but of what company I know not) — was he a 
cousin of Edward Coke, afterwards Speaker? — with 
the daughter of Mr. Nicolls, master of London Bridge. 
My Lord Mayor and all the Aldermen, with many 
ladies and other worshipful men and women, were 
present at the wedding. Mr. Bacon, an eminent di- 
vine, preached the wedding sermon. After the dis- 
course the company went home to the Bridge House 
to dinner, where was as good cheer as ever was known 
— Stow says so, and he knew very well — with all man- 
ner of music and dancing, and at night a masque till 
midnight. But this was only half the feast, for next 
day the wedding was again kept at the Bridge House 
with great cheer. After supper more mumming, after 
that more masques. One was in cloth of gold, the 
next consisted of friars, and the third of nuns. First 
the friars and the nuns danced separately, one com- 
pany after the other, and then they danced together. 
Considering that it was only two years since the friars 



TUDOR 309 

and the nuns had been finally suppressed, there must 
have been a certain piquancy in this dance. It is al- 
ways, at such times, put on the stage. One of the 
first things, for instance, done in Madrid when Spain 
got her short-lived republic was that in every cafe 
chantant they put a friar and a nun on the stage to 
dance and sing together. 

They still kept the saint's day of their company; in 
fact, when the old faith was suppressed the people 
willingly endured a change of doctrine so long as they 
were not called upon to give up their feasting, which 
was exactly what had happened in Italy and elsewhere 
when the people were induced or forced to become 
Christians. They made no objection to doctrine, pro- 
vided their practice was not interfered with. There- 
fore the Protestant citizens kept up their Whitsun 
ales, their wakes, their Easter and Christmas feastings. 
All the saints' days which brought something better 
than ordinary to eat, with morris dances, May-poles, 
bonfires, music, and Feasts of Misrule were religiously 
conserved. As to the Feast of Misrule, hear the tes- 
timony of the contemporary moralist : 

" Thus all things set in order, then have they their 
hobby-horses, their dragons, and other antiques, to- 
gether with their pipers and thundering drummers, to 
strike up the Devil's Dance. Thus march this merry 
company towards the church and church -yard, their 
pipers piping, their drummers thundering, their stumpes 
dancing, their bells jingling, their handkerchiefs flut- 
tering about their heads like madmen, their hobby- 
horses and other monsters skirmishing among the 
throng, and in this sort they go to the church like 
devils incarnate, with such a confused noise that no 



310 LONDON 

man can hear his own voice. Then the foolish people 
— they look, they stare, they laugh, they cheer, they 
mount upon forms and pews to see the goodly pag- 
eants solemnized in this sort. Then, after this, about 
the church they go again and again, and so forth into 
the church -yard, where they have commonly their 
summer halls, their bowers, arbors, and banqueting- 
houses set up, wherein they feast, banquet, and dance 
all that day, and, peradventure, all that night too." 

To keep a troop of servants has always been a mark 
of state. Ladies used to beat their servants — follow- 
ing the example of the Queen, who sometimes boxed 
the ears of her courtiers. Everybody of position trav- 
elled, and nearly everybody went to Italy, with results 
disastrous to religion and to morals. One of the 
worst figures in the Elizabethan gallery is the English- 
man Italianized. Of course on his return the travel- 
ler gave himself strange airs. How they travelled 
and what they saw may be read in that most charm- 
ing book, the Epistolce Hoclliance. 

Card-playing and gaming were the commonest form 
of amusement. The games were primcro, which Fal- 
staff foreswore, trump, gleek, gresco, new cut, knave 
out-of-doors, ruff, noddy, post and pace — all of these 
games corresponding, no doubt, to those still played. 

Another favorite amusement was dancing in all its 
various forms, from the stately court dance to the 
merry circle on the village green. The principal 
dances were the solemn pavane, the brawl, the Passa- 
mezzo galliard, the Canary dance, the coranto, the la- 
volta, the jig, the galliard, the fancy, and the hey. 

Gentlemen were followed in the streets by their 
servants, who carried their master's sword. Their 



TUDOR 31I 

dress was blue, with the master's badge in silver on 
the left arm. 

The pages of Stow, Harrison, Hall, Greene, and 
Nash contain not only glimpses, but also set pictures 
of the time, from which extracts by the hundred 
might be made. There are the awful examples, for 
instance, of Sir John Champneys, Alderman and Lord 
Mayor, and Richard Wethell, citizen and tailor. Both 
these persons built high towers to their houses to 
show their pride and to look down upon their neigh- 
bors — one is reminded of the huge leaning towers in 
Bologna. What happened ? The first went blind, so 
that though he might climb his tower he could see 
nothing. The second was afflicted with gout in hands 
and feet, so that he could not walk, much less climb 
his tower. Stubbes has other instances of judgments, 
particularly the terrible fate of the girl who invoked 
the devil to help her with her ruff. 

Here is a curious little story. It happened in the 
reign of King James. One day, in Bishopsgate Ward, 
a poor man, named Richard Atkinson, going to re- 
move a heap of sea-coal ashes in his wheelbarrow, dis- 
covered lying in the ashes the body of a newly-born 
child. It was still breathing, and he carried it to his 
wife, who washed and fed it and restored it to life. 
The child was a goodly and well-formed boy, strong 
and well-featured, without blemish or harm upon it. 
They christened the child at St. Helen's Church, by a 
name which should cause him to remember, all through 
his life, his very remarkable origin. They called him. 
in fact, Job Cinere Extractus. A noble name, for the 
sake of which alone he should have lived. What an 
ancestor to have had ! How delightful to be a Cinere 



312 LONDON 

Extractus ! Who would not wish to belong to such a 
family, and to point to the ash-heap as the origin of 
the first Cinere Extractus? Nothing like it in history 
since the creation of Adam himself. What a coat of 
arms ! A shield azure, an ash-heap proper, with sup- 
porters of two dustmen with shovels; crest a sieve; 
motto, like that of the Courtenays, " from what heights 
descended?" But alas! poor little Job Cinere Ex- 
tractus died three days afterwards, and now lies buried 
in St. Helen's church-yard, without even a monument. 
Another baby story— but this belongs to Charles I.'s 
time- — it happened, in fact, in the last month of that 
melancholy reign. It was seven o'clock in the even- 
ing. A certain ship-chandler became suddenly so 
foolish as to busy himself over a barrel of gunpowder 
with a candle. Naturally a spark fell into the barrel, 
and he was not even left time enough to express his 
regrets. Fifty houses were wrecked. How many 
were killed no one could tell, but at the next house 
but one, the Rose Tavern, there was a great company 
holding the parish dinner, and they all perished. Next 
morning, however, there was found on the leads of 
All Hallows Barking a young child in a cradle as 
newly laid in bed, neither child nor cradle having sus- 
tained the least harm. It was never known who the 
child was, but she was adopted by a gentleman of the 
parish, and lived certainly to. the age of seventeen, 
when the historian saw her going to call her master, 
who was drinking at a tavern. It is two hundred and 
fifty years ago. That young woman may have at this 
moment over a thousand descendants at least. Who 
would not like to boast that she was his great-grand- 
mother? 



TUDOR 313 

A reform of vast importance, though at first it 
seems a small thing, was introduced in this reign. It 
was the restoration of vegetables and roots as part of 
daily diet. Harrison is my authority. He says that 
in old days — as in the time of the First Edward — 
herbs, fruits, and roots were much used, but that from 
Henry IV. to Henry VIII. the use of them decayed 
and was forgotten. " Now," he says, " in my time 
their use is not only resumed among the poore com- 
mons — I mean of melons, pompines, gourds, cucum- 
bers, radishes, skirrets, parsneps, carrots, marrowes, 
turnips, and all kinds of salad herbes — but they are 
also looked upon as deintie dishes at the tables of 
delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie, who 
make their provision yearly for new seeds out of 
strange countries from whence they have them abun- 
dantly." 

Perhaps the cause of the disuse of roots and vege- 
tables was the enormous rise in wages after the Black 
Death, when the working-classes, becoming suddenly 
rich, naturally associated roots with scarcity of beef, 
and governed themselves accordingly. 

The use of tobacco spread as rapidly, when once it 
was introduced, as that of coffee later on. King James 
speaks of those who spend as much as £300 a year 
upon this noxious weed. Those who took tobacco 
attributed to it all the virtues possible for any plant 
to possess, and more. 

It was the custom of the better sort of citizens to 
have gardens outside the City, each with its own gar- 
den-house, in some cases a mere arbor, but in others 
a house for residence in the summer months. Moor- 
fields had many of these gardens, but Bethnal Green, 



314 LONDON 

Hoxton (Hoggesden), and Mile End were favorite 
spots for these retreats. Of course, the city madams 
were accused of using these gardens as convenient 
places for intrigue. 

The education of girls was never so thorough as at 
this time. Perhaps Lucy Hutchinson and Lady Jane 
Grey — well-known cases — ought not to be taken as 
average examples. The former, for instance, could 
read at four, and at seven was under eight tutors, who 
taught her languages, music, dancing, writing, and 
needle-work. She also became a proficient in the art 
of preparing simples and medicines. Of her husband 
she says that he was a masterly player on the viol ; 
that he was a good marksman with gun and bow ; and 
that he was a collector of paintings and engravings. 
Perhaps there was never a time when body and mind 
were equally trained and developed as they were in 
the sixteenth century. Think with what contempt 
Sidney and Raleigh would regard an age like the pres- 
ent, when the young men are trained to foot-ball, run- 
ning, and cricket, but, for the most part, cannot ride, 
cannot shoot, cannot fence, cannot box, cannot wres- 
tle, cannot sing, cannot play any instrument, cannot 
dance, and cannot make verses ! 

In the matter Of rogues, vagabonds, and common 
cheats, the age of Elizabeth shows no falling off, but 
quite the reverse. We have little precise information 
on English ribaadcrie before this time, but now, thanks 
to John Awdely, Thomas Harman, Parson Hybesdrine, 
Thomas Dekker, Robert Greene, and others, we learn 
the whole art and mystery of coney-catching as prac- 
tised under the Tudor dynasty. The rogues had their 
own language. No doubt they always had their Ian- 



TUDOR 



315 



guage, as they have it now ; and it varied from year 
to year as it varies now, but the groundwork remained 
the same, and, indeed, remains the same to this day. 
The rogues and thieves, the beggars and the impos- 
tors, are still with us. They are still accompanied by 
their autem morts, their 
walking morts, their Kyn- 
chen morts, their dox- 
ies, and their dolls, only 
some of those cheats are 
changed with the changes 
of the time. Under Queen 
Gloriana they abound in 
every town and in every 
street, they tramp along 
all the roads, they haunt 
the farm-houses, they rob 
the market-women and 
the old men. They have 
their ranks and their pre- 
cedency. The Upright man is a captain among them; 
the Curtail has authority over them ; the Patriarch Co- 
marries them until death do them part — that is to say, 
until they pass a carcass of any creature, when, if they 
choose, they shake hands and go separate ways. They 
are well known by profession and name at every fair 
throughout the country. They are Great John Gray 
and Little John Gray; John Stradling with the shak- 
ing head ; Lawrence with the great leg ; Henry Smyth, 
who drawls when he speaks ; that fine old gentleman, 
Richard Horwood, who is eighty years of age and can 
still bite a sixpenny nail asunder with his teeth, and a 
notable toper still ; Will Pellet, who carries the Kyn- 




NEWGATE 



3 l6 LONDON 

chen mort at his back; John Browne, the stammerer; 
and the rest of them. They are all known ; their 
backs and shoulders are scored with the nine-tailed 
cat ; not a headborough or a constable but knows 
them every one. Yet they forget their prison and 
their whipping as soon as they are free. Those things 
are the little drawbacks of the profession, against 
which must be set freedom, no work, no masters, and 
no duties. Who would not go upon the budge, even 
though at the end there stands the three trees, up 
which we shall have to climb by the ladder? 

The Budge it is a delicate trade, 
And a delicate trade of fame ; 
For when that we have bit the bloe, 
We carry away the game. 

But when that we come to Tyburn 
For going upon the Budge, 
There stands Jack Catch the hangman, 
That owes us all a grudge. 

And when that he hath noosed us, 
And our friends tip him no cole ; 
O then he throws us into the cart, 
And tumbles us in the hole. 

In the streets of London they separate and practise 
each in the quarter most likely to catch the gull. For 
instance, observe this well-dressed young gentleman, 
with the simple manner and the honest face, strolling 
along the middle-walk of Paul's. Simple as he looks, 
his eye glances here and there among the throng. 
Presently he sees a young countryman, whom he 
knows by the unfailing signs ; he approaches the coun- 
tryman ; he speaks to him ; in a few minutes they 



TUDOR 317 

leave the Cathedral together and betake them to a 
tavern, where they dine, each paying for himself, in 
amity and friendship, though strangers but an hour 
since. Then comes into the tavern an ancient person, 
somewhat decayed in appearance, who sits down and 
calls for a stoup of ale. " Now," says the first young 
man, " you shall see a jest, sir." Whereupon he ac- 
costs the old gentleman, and presently proposes to 
throw the dice for another pot. The old man accepts, 
being a very simple and childlike old man, and loses 
— both his money and his temper. Then the country- 
man joins in. . . . After the young countryman gets 
home, he learns that the old man was a " fingerer " by 
profession, and that the young man was his confidant. 

The courtesy man works where the sailors and sea- 
captains congregate ; he accosts one who looks cred- 
ulous and new ; he tells him that he is one of a 
company, tall, proper men, all like himself — he is well- 
mannered ; they are disbanded soldiers, masterless 
and moneyless ; for himself he would not beg, but for 
his dear comrades he would do anything. When he 
receives a shilling he puts it up with an air of con- 
tempt, but accepts the donor's good-will, and thanks 
him for so much. A plausible villain, this. 

Outside Aldgate, where the Essex farmers are found, 
the "ring faller" loves to practise his artless game. 
Have we not still with us the man who picks up the 
ring which he is willing to let us have for the tenth of 
its value ? The Elizabethan mariner, who has been 
shipwrecked and lost his all, has vanished. The Tu- 
dor disbanded soldier has vanished, but the army 
reserve man sells his matches in the street when he 
cannot find the work he looks for so earnestly ; the 



318 LONDON 

counterfeit cranker who stood at the corner of the 
street covered with mud, and his face besmeared with 
blood, as one who has just had an attack of the fall- 
ing sickness, is gone, because that kind of sickness is 
known no longer ; the " frater " who carried a forged 
license to beg for a hospital, is also gone ; the abra- 
ham man, who pretended to be mad, is gone; the 
" palliard " or " clapper dodger ;" the angler, who stuck 
a hook in a long pole and helped himself out of the 
open shops; the " prigger of prancers," a horse thief; 
the ruffier, the swigman and prigman, are also gone, 
but their descendants remain with us, zealous in the 
pursuit of kindred callings, and watched over pater- 
nally by a force 38,000 strong — about one policeman 
for every habitual criminal — so that, since every po- 
liceman costs ;£ioo a year, and every criminal steals, 
eats, or destroys property to the same amount at least, 
every criminal costs the country, first, the things 
which he steals — say ^100 a year; next, his police- 
man, another ,£100; thirdly, the loss of his own in- 
dustry ; and fourthly, the loss of the policeman's in- 
dustry — making in all about ^500 a year. It would 
be cheaper to lock him up. 

In the matter of punishments, we have entered 
upon a time of greater cruelty than prevailed under 
the Plantagenets. Men are boiled, and women are 
burned for poisoning; heretics are still burned — in 
1585 one thus suffered for denying the divinity of 
Christ ; ears are nailed to the pillory and sliced off 
for defamation and seditious words ; long and cruel 
whippings are inflicted — in one case through West- 
minster and London for forgery ; an immense number 
are hanged every year ; the chronicler Macheyn con- 



TUDOR 319 

tinually sets down such a fact as that on this day- 
twelve were hanged at Tyburn, seven men and five 
women ; mariners were hanged at low water at Wrap- 
ping, for offences committed at sea ; the good old 
custom of pillory was maintained with zeal ; and the 
parading of backsliders in carts or on horseback was 
kept up. Thus, one woman for selling fry of fish, un- 
lawful, rode triumphantly through the town with gar- 
lands of fish decorating her head and shoulders and 
the tail of the horse, while one went before beating a 
brass basin. Another woman was carried round, a 
distaff in her hand and a blue hood on her head, for 
a common scold. A man was similarly honored for 
selling measly pork ; and another, riding with his head 
to the animal's tail, for doing something sinful con- 
nected with lamb and veal. 

The cruelty of punishments only shows that the 
administration of the law was weak. In fact, the ma- 
chinery for enforcing law and repressing crime was 
growing more and more unequal to the task, as the 
City grew in numbers and in population. The magis- 
trates sought to deter by the spectacle of suffering. 
This is a deterrent which only acts beneficially when 
punishment is certain, or nearly certain. The knowl- 
edge that nine criminals will escape for one who is 
whipped all the way from Charing Cross to Newgate 
encourages the whole ten to continue. Men are like 
children : if they are to be kept in the paths of virtue, 
it is better to watch and prevent them continually 
than to leave them free and to punish them if they 
fall. But this great law was not as yet understood. 



VII 

TUDOR LONDON 
II. A PERAMBULATION 

IT was on the morning of June 23, in the year of 
grace 1603, tnat I was privileged to behold John 
Stow himself in the flesh, and to converse with him, 
and to walk with him through the streets of the city 
whose history and origin he knew better than any 
man of his own age or of any time that has followed 
him. It is common enough for a man to live among 
posterity, to speak to them and counsel them and 
comfort them ; but for a man to visit his forefathers 
is a thing of rarer occurrence. At another time the 
way and manner of slipping backward up the ringing 
grooves of change may be explained for the benefit 
of others. For the moment, the important thing is 
the actual fact. 

I found the venerable antiquary in his lodging. He 
lived — it was the year before he died — with his old 
wife, a childless pair, in a house over against the 
Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, in the street called 
St. Mary Axe. The house itself was modest, con- 
taining two rooms on the ground-floor, and one large 
room, or solar, as it would have been called in olden 



TUDOR 



321 




SIGN OF THE THREE KINGS. BUCKLESBURV 



time, above. There was a garden at the back, and 
behind the garden stood the ruins of St. Helen's Nun- 
nery, with the grounds and gardens of that once fa- 
mous house, which had passed into the possession of 
the Leathersellers' Company. This open space af- 
forded freedom and sweetness for the air, which doubt- 
less conduced to the an- 
tiquary's length of days. 
Outside the door I found, 
sitting in an arm-chair, 
Mistress Stow, an ancient 
dame. She had knitting 
in her lap, and she was 
fast asleep, the day being 
fine and warm, with a 
hot sun in the heavens, 
and a soft wind from the 

south. Without asking her leave, therefore, I passed 
within, and mounting a steep, narrow stair, found 
myself in the library and in the presence of John 
Stow himself. The place was a long room, lofty 
in the middle, but with sloping sides. It was lit by 
two dormer windows ; neither carpet nor arras, nor 
hangings of any kind, adorned the room, which was 
filled, so that it was difficult to turn about in it, with 
books, papers, parchments, and rolls. They lay piled 
on the floor; they stood in lines and columns against 
the walls ; they were heaped upon the table ; they lay 
at the right hand of the chair ready for use ; they 
were everywhere. I observed, too, that they were 
not such books as may be seen in a great man's li- 
brary, bound after the Italian fashion, with costly 
leather, gilt letters, golden clasps, and silken strings. 



322 LONDON 

Not so. These books were old folios for the most 
part ; the backs were broken ; the leaves, where any 
lay open, were discolored ; many of them were in the 
Gothic black letter. On the table were paper, pens, 
and ink, and in the straight-backed arm-chair sat the 
old man himself, pen in hand, laboriously bending 
over a huge tome from which he was making extracts. 
He wore a black silk cap ; his long white hair fell 
down upon his shoulders. The casements of the win- 
dows stood wide open, and through one of them, 
which looked to the south, the summer sunshine 
poured warm and bright upon the old scholar's head, 
and upon the table at which he sat. 

When I entered the room he looked up, rose, and 
bowed courteously. His figure was tall and spare ; 
his shoulders were rounded by much bending over 
books ; his face was scored with the lines and wrinkles 
of old age ; his eyes were clear and keen ; but his as- 
pect was kindly ; his speech was soft and gentle. 

" Sir," he said, " you are welcome. I had never 
expected or looked to converse in the flesh, or in 
the spirit — I know not which this visit may be 
called — with one from after generations; from our 
children and grandchildren. May I ask to which 
generation — " 

" I belong to the late nineteenth century." 

" It is nearly three hundred years to come. Bones 
o' me ! Ten generations ! I take this visit, sir, as an 
encouragement ; even a special mark of favor bestowed 
upon me by the Lord, to show His servant that his 
work will not be forgotten." 

" Forgotten ? Nay, Master Stow, there are not 
many men of your age whom we would not lose be- 



TUDOR 323 

fore you are forgotten. Believe me, the Survey by 
John Stow will last as long as the City itself." 

" Truly, sir," the old man replied, " my sole pains 
and care have ever been to write the truth. It is forty 
years — Ah, what a man was I at forty ! What la- 
bors could I then accomplish between uprising and 
downlying ! Forty years, I say, since I wrote the 
lines : 

Of smooth and feathering speech remember to take heed, 
For truth in plain words may be told ; of craft a lie hath need. 

"Of rCraft," he repeated, "a lie hath need. If the 
world would consider — well, sir, I am old and my 
friends are mostly dead, and men, I find, care little for 
the past wherein was life, but still regard the present 
and push on towards the future, wherein are death 
and the grave. And for my poor services the king 
hath granted letters patent whereby I am licensed to 
beg. I complain not, though for one who is a Lon- 
don citizen, and the grandson of reputable citizens, to 
beg one's bread is to be bankrupt, and of bankrupts 
this city hath great scorn. Yet, I say, I complain 
not." 

" In so long a life," I said, " you must have many 
memories." 

" So many, sir, that they fill my mind. Often, as I 
sit here, whither cometh no one now to converse 
about the things of old, my senses are closed to the 
present, and my thoughts carry me back to the old 
days. Why " — his eyes looked back as he spoke — " I 
remember King Harry the Eighth himself, the like of 
whom for masterfulness this realm hath never seen. 
Who but a strong man could by his own will over- 



324 LONDON 

throw — yea, and tear up by the very foundations — 
the religion which seemed made to endure forever? 
Sure I am that when I was a boy there was no thought 
of any change. I remember when in the streets every 
second man was priest or monk. The latter still wore 
his habit — grey, white, or black. But you could not 
tell the priest from the layman, for the priests were 
so proud that they went clothed in silks and furs ; 
yea, and of bright colors like any court gallant ; their 
shoes spiked ; their hair crisped ; their girdles armed 
with silver; and in like manner their bridles and their 
spurs ; their caps laced and buttoned with gold. Now 
our clergy go in sober attire, so that the gravity of 
their calling is always made manifest to their own and 
others' eyes by the mere color of their dress. I re- 
member, being then a youth, how the Houses were 
dissolved and the monks turned out. All were swept 
away. There was not even left so much as an hospi- 
tal for the sick ; even the blind men of Elsing's were 
sent adrift, and the lepers from the Lazar house, and 
the old priests from the Papey. There was no help 
for the poor in those days, and folk murmured, but 
below breath, and would fain, but dared not say so, 
have seen the old religion again. The king gave the 
houses to his friends. Lord Cromwell got Austin 
Friars, where my father, citizen and tallow-chandler, 
had his house. Nay, so greedy of land was my lord 
that he set back my father's wall, and so robbed him 
of his garden, and there was no redress, because he 
was too strong." 

He got up and walked about the room, talking as 
he paced the narrow limits. He talked garrulously, 
as if it pleased him to talk about the past. " When 



TUDOR 325 

we came presently to study Holy Scripture," he said, 
" where there is an example or a warning for every- 
thing, we read the history of Ahab and of Naboth's 
vineyard ; and for my own part I could never avoid 
comparing my Lord Cromwell with Ahab, and the 
vineyard with my father's garden, though Naboth had 
never to pay rent for the vineyard which was taken 
from him as my father had. The end of my Lord 
Cromwell was sudden and violent, like the end of 
King Ahab." 

"You belong to an old city family, Master Stow?" 
I asked. 

" Sir, my forefathers for five generations — at least, 
my memory goes not farther back — are all buried in 
the little green church-yard behind St. Michael's Corn- 
hill. My grandfather, citizen and tallow-chandler, 
died when I was yet of tender years. This have I al- 
ways regretted, because he might have told me many 
curious things concerning the City in the time of Ed- 
ward the Fourth. The penance of Jane Shore he 
would surely remember. Nay, he may even have 
known that unfortunate lady, wife of a reputable citi- 
zen. Yet have I in my youth conversed with old 
men and learned much from them. My grandfather, 
by his last will, thought it no superstition to leave 
money for watching-candles. I was once taken to the 
church to see them burning, and there I remember I 
saw a poor woman who received every Sunday, for a 
year, one penny for saying five pater-nosters for the 
good of his soul. Thus she lived, poor wretch, wast- 
ing her breath in fruitless labor. I marvel to think 
what has become of all those who lived by the altar 
in the old days. The priests of the churches and the 



326 



LONDON 



chantries, the chaplains of the fraternities, the singing- 
men, the petty canons, the sextons, singers, sayers of 
pater-nosters, sellers of crosses and beads and chaplets 
and wax tapers, the monks and the nuns with all their 
officers and servants — there were many thousands in 




THE MANNER OF BURNING ANNE ASKEW, JOHN LACELS, JOHN ADAMS, AND NICOLAS 
BELENIAN, WITH CERTANE OF YE COUNSELL SITTING IN SMITHFIELD 



this city alone — what became of them? How get 
they now a livelihood ? Tell me that. As for me, I 
have been hauled before the courts on a charge of Pa- 
pistry. Bones o' me! All my crime was the reading 
of old books, yet do I remember the evil days of King 
Edward's time, when the Reformation was new, and 



TUDOR 327 

people's minds were troubled, and all things seemed 
turning to destruction, so that many welcomed back 
the old religion when Mary came, yet when she died 
there was found none to mourn for its banishment. 
Sir, the old are apt to praise the past, but from one 
who has lived through the glorious reign of Queen 
Elizabeth shall you hear nothing but praise of the 
present. Consider" — he arose and walked to the open 
window and looked out — " this fine town of London, 
like the realm itself, was devoured by the priests and 
monks. It is now freed from those locusts. The land 
that belonged to the Church could not be sold, so that 
those who lived upon it were always tenants and serv- 
ants. That land is now free. Learning, which be- 
fore was on sufferance, is now free. Nay, there hath 
been so great a zeal for learning — such an exemplar 
was Her Highness the Queen — that noble ladies, as 
well as gentlemen, have become skilled in Latin, 
Greek, Italian, and even in Hebrew. The trade of 
the City hath doubled and trebled. Thanks to the 
wisdom of our merchants and their courage, London 
doth now surpass Antwerp. The Spaniard, who vain- 
ly thought to rule the world, is humbled, and by us. 
The French, who would strike at England through 
Scotland, have lost their power. Our ships sail round 
the world; our merchants trade with India in the 
east and with America in the west: our trading com- 
panies cover all the seas. What does it matter that 
I am old and poor and licensed to beg my bread — and 
that in a city which hath ever scorned poverty — what 
does it matter, I say, so that one has lived through 
this most happy reign and seen this city increase, 
year by year, in wealth and greatness ? Who am I 



328 LONDON 

that I should murmur? I have had my prayer. The 
Lord hath graciously made me the historian of the 
City. My work will be a monument. What more 
can a man want than to have the desire of his heart ?" 
His voice trembled. He stood in the sunshine, which 
wrapped him as with a glory. Then he turned to me. 

" Sir," said he, " you are here — whether in the flesh 
or the spirit I know not. Come with me. Let me 
show you my city and my people. In three hundred 
years there will be many changes and the sweeping 
away of many old landmarks, I doubt not. There 
must be many changes in customs and usages and in 
fashions of manners and of dress. Come with me. 
You shall behold my present — and your past." 

He put on his cloak — a shabby cloak it was, and too 
short for his tall figure — and led the way down the 
narrow stairs into the street. He stepped out of the 
house, and looked up and down the street, sniffing the 
air with the greatest satisfaction, as if it had been la- 
den with the perfumes of Araby the Blest instead of 
the smell of a glue-making shop hard by. 

"Ha!" he said, "the air of London is wholesome. 
We have had no plague since the sweating sickness, 
fifty years ago." (There was to be another the year 
after, but this he could not know, and it was not for 
me to tell him.) " Yet at Iseldon, hard by, fevers are 
again very prevalent, and the falling sickness is re- 
ported from Westminster. This, sir, is the street of 
St. Mary Axe. It is not one of our great streets, yet 
many worshipful men live here. Opposite is the house 
of one who is worth £4000 — aye, .£4.000 at least ; not 
a Gresham or a Staple, yet a man of substance." The 
house was four stories high, the front of brick and 




OLD FOUNTAIN INN IN THE MINORIES 

Taken down in 1 793 



TUDOR 331 

timber, the windows rilled above and below with rich 
carvings, and having a high gable. " The wealth of 
private citizens hath lately much increased. In my 
youth there were few such houses ; now there are a 
dozen where formerly there was but one. If you go 
into that house, sir, you will find the table plentiful 
and the wine good ; you will see arras hanging in 
every chamber, or a painted cloth with proverbs at 
least ; sweet herbs or flowers are strewn in every 
room ; the house is warmed with fires ; the sideboards 
are loaded with plate or are bright with Murano glass. 
There are coffers of ivory and wood to hold the good 
man's treasure ; and in an upper chamber you shall 
see hanging up the cloaks and doublets, the gowns 
and petticoats, of this worthy and worshipful mer- 
chant and his family, in silk and velvet, precious and 
costly. Fifty years ago there would have been none 
of these things, but treen platters ; of arras none ; and 
but one poor silver mazer for all his plate. But we 
are not ashamed to see the tenements of the crafts- 
men side by side with the great houses of the rich. 
For we are all brothers in this city ; one family are 
we, rich and poor together ; we are united in our 
companies and in our work ; our prentices are taught 
their trade ; to our maids we give marriage portions ; 
we suffer no stranger among us ; our sick and aged 
are kept from want and suffering." 

" But you have great Lords and noblemen among 
you. Surely they are not of your family." 

" Sir, the time was when it was a happy circum- 
stance for the City to have the nobles within her 
walls. That time is past. They are fast leaving our 
bounds. One or two alone remain, and we shall not 



332 LONDON 

lament their departure. There is no longer any dan- 
ger that the City will be separate in feeling from the 
country, and it is true that the rufflers who follow in 
a noble lord's train are ever ready to turn a silly girl's 
head or to lead a prentice into dissolute ways. In this 
street there were once no fewer than three parish 
churches. Yonder ruin at the north end was St. Au- 
gustine on the Wall : here of old times was the house 
of the old and sick priests, called the Papey. King 
Henry turned them out, and who took in the poor old 
men I know not. 'Twas a troubled time. Yonder 
was the church — its church -yard yet remaining — of 
St. Mary Axe, dedicated not only to the Virgin whom 
now we have ceased to worship, yet still reverence, 
but also to St. Ursula, whom we regard no more, and 
to the Eleven Thousand Virgins, at whose pretended 
miracle we scoff. And opposite is the goodly church 
of St. Andrew Undershaft. Of churches we have 
fewer than of old. As for piety, truly I see no differ- 
ence, for some will always be pious, and some prodigal 
and profligate. I remember," he went on, gazing, as 
was his wont, at the church as if he loved the very 
stones — " I remember the May-pole when it hung upon 
hooks along the south wall of the church. I never 
saw it erected, because Evil May-day, before I was 
born, when the prentices rose against the aliens, was 
the last time that it was put up. It was destroyed in 
King Edward's time, when one Sir Stephen, curate of 
Katherine Cree, preached at Paul's Cross that the 
May-pole was an idol. So the people brought axes 
and cut it up — the goodliest May-pole that the world 
has ever seen, and taller than the steeple of the 
church. The same Sir Stephen wanted to change 



TUDOR 333 

the names of the churches, and the names of the week- 
days, and the time of Lent, all for the sake of idola- 
try. And the same Sir Stephen caused the death of 
the most honest man that ever lived, for alleged sedi- 
tious words. Well — 'tis fifty years ago." 

With this reminiscence we passed through Leaden- 
hall, and into a broad and open place. " Now," said 
Stow, "we are in the very heart of the City. Here 
hath been, for time out of mind, a corn-market. And 
here are pillory and stocks, but," said Stow, " this pil- 
lory is for false dealing only. The greater pillory is 
in Cheapside. Here we have the Tun prison" — in 
shape the building somewhat resembled a tun — " for 
street offenders and the like. It has been a city pris- 
on for three hundred years and more. Beside it is the 
conduit. Here are two churches : St. Peter's, which 
falsely pretends to be the most ancient of any in the 
City, and St. Michael's. But the chief glory of Corn- 
hill is the Royal Exchange. Let us look in." 

The entrance and principal front of the Royal Ex- 
change were on the south side. We looked in. The 
place was crowded with merchants, grave and sober 
men, walking within in pairs, or gathered in little 
groups. Among them were foreigners from Germany, 
France, Venice, Genoa, Antwerp, and even Russia, 
conspicuous by their dress. " Before the building of 
this place," said Stow, " our merchants had no place 
to meet, and were forced to seek out each other; nor 
was there any place where the latest news might be 
brought, however much the interest of the City might 
be affected. Now all is changed, and every morning 
our worshipful merchants meet to hear the news, and 
to discuss their business. Come, we must not linger, 



334 LONDON 

for we have much to see ; else there would be many 
things to tell. Believe me, sir, I could discourse all 
day long upon the trade of London and yet not make 
an end." 

He led me past the Royal Exchange, past two 
churches, one on the north side and one on the south, 
into a broad and open street, which I knew must be 
Cheapside. 

" Here," said he, " is the beauty of London. This, 
good Sir, is Chepe." 

The street was at least double the width of its mod- 
ern successor. The houses, which were the fairest, 
taken all together, in the whole of the City, were 
nearly all five stories high, each story projecting above 
the one below, with high-pitched gable facing the 
street. The fronts were of brick and timber, and 
some of them were curiously and richly carved. In 
some the third story was provided with a balcony 
shaded from the sun. The ground-floor contained the 
shop, protected by a prentice. A sign hung in front 
of every house. In the middle was Queen Eleanor's 
cross, the figure of the Virgin and Holy Infant de- 
faced by zealous Protestants. Near the cross was the 
conduit. The shops on the south side were of gro- 
cers, haberdashers, and upholsterers. Farther west 
the goldsmiths stood together, and then the mercers. 
The street was filled with people, some riding, some 
walking. There were gallants, followed by servants 
carrying their swords ; there were grave city mer- 
chants and fine city madams ; there were working-men 
and craftsmen ; there were the prentices, too, in every 
shop, bawling their wares. 

" When I was a prentice," said Stow, " the boys 




SOUTH-WEST VIEW OF AN ANCIENT STRUCTURE IN SHIP-YARD, TEMPLE BAR 



tudor 337 

were made to wear blue cloaks in summer and blue 
gowns in winter, with breeches and stockings of white 
broadcloth, and flat caps. They attended their mas- 
ter at night with a lantern and clubs, and they fetched 
the water in the morning, unless they were mercers, 
who were excused. But all good manners are changed. 
Now they dress as they please, and except that they 
carry the club and break each other's pates withal, 
they are no longer like the old prentice. Also, for- 
merly £10 would suffice to bind a lad and make him 
free of the City ; now £100 is wanted. Well, sir, here 
you have Chepe. Rich it is with goodly houses and 
its ancient churches ; I say not stately churches, be- 
cause our forefathers loved better to beautify the reli- 
gious houses than their parish churches — yet many 
goodly monuments are erected in them to the memo- 
ries of dead worthies. Much of the carved work and 
the painting has been destroyed or defaced by the zeal 
of reformers, who have broken the painted windows 
so that false doctrine should no longer be preached 
by those dumb orators. Truly, when I think upon the 
churches as they were, with all their monuments and 
chapels and holy roods, carved and beautified by the 
cunning of the sculptor and limner, and look upon 
them as they are, hacked and hewn, I am fain to 
weep for sorrow. Yet, again, when I remember the 
swarms of monks and priests from whom we are set 
free, and our holy martyrs who perished in the flames, 
I confess that the destruction was needful." He 
stepped aside to make room for a gentlewoman who 
w r alked proudly along the street, followed by a servant. 
" Aye," he murmured, " thy husband is a respectable 
merchant on 'Change ; his father before him, citizen 



338 LONDON 

and armorer, also respected. But his profits will not 
long suffice to meet thine extravagance, my fine city 
madam." 

She was of the middle height, and about thirty 
years of age ; her hair was a bright red. " A week ago 
it was brown," said my guide. It was knotted and 
raised above her forehead ; on her head she wore a 
hood of muslin, under which one could see gold threads 
in her hair, and open peascods with pearls for peas ; 
her face was smeared all over with paint ; a heavy 
gold chain hung round her neck ; her ruff was of enor- 
mous size, and her waist was extravagantly long; her 
gown was of rich velvet, looped back to show her pet- 
ticoat of flowered satin ; she had a lovelock under her 
left ear, tied with a freshly-cut rose ; she was so stuffed 
out with hoops that she covered as much space as six 
women; in one hand she carried a fan, and in the 
other a pomander-box, at which she sniffed perpetually. 

" She moves like a painted galley," said Stow. " No 
barge on the river finer to look at. All the argosies 
of the East would be swallowed up by such a woman. 
'Give, give,' say the daughters of the horse -leech. 
Sir, the Lord made the female less comely than her 
mate ; witness the peahen and the pullet in their rus- 
set garb compared with the splendor of their male. 
This, I take it, is the reason why women continually 
seek by some new fashion or device to remove the 
inequality, and, if possible, to overtop their lords as 
well as each other. As for me, I have always loved a 
maid in her simplicity, her hair falling in curls about 
her lovely face, and her shape visible instead of hid- 
den under ruffs and hoops. But, alas ! what hath a 
man of eighty to do with maidens?" he sighed. 



TUDOR 339 

"Yonder," he went on, "is the chief pillory, the 
whipping-place of the City. .Chepe is not only a place 
of trade and fine clothes. Here have I seen many 
things done that would be cruel but for the common 
weal. Once I saw a comely maiden lose her ears and 
have her forehead branded for trying to poison her 
mistress. Once I saw a school -master flogged for 
cruelly beating a boy. It was rare to see the boys 
shouting and clapping their hands as the poor wretch 
screamed. Some have I seen pilloried for cheating, 
some for seditious words, some for disorder. Pillory 
is a potent physician. The mere sight of these round 
holes and that post doth act like a medicine upon old 
and young. It is in Smithfield, not in Chepe, that 
we chiefly hold our executions. Men and women 
have been burned there for other things besides her- 
esy : for poisoning, for false coining, for murdering. 
Many are hanged every year in that ruffians' field. 
But to-day we shall not see executions. Let us talk 
of more mirthful things. And see, here comes a wed- 
ding-train !" 

The music came first, a noise of crowds and clarions 
playing merrily. Next came damsels bearing bride- 
cakes and gilded loaves. After them a young man 
carried the silver bride-cup, filled with hippocras and 
garnished with rosemary, which stands for constancy. 
Then came the bride herself, a very beauteous lady, 
dressed all in white, decorated with long chains of 
gold, pearls, and precious stones. On her head was a 
white lace cap. She was led by two boys in green 
and gold. After her walked her parents and other 
members of the family. 

" Ha !" he said, " there will be rare feasting to-day, 



340 LONDON 

with masks and mumming and dancing. We marry 
but once in our lives. 'Twere pity if we could not 
once rejoice. Yet there are some who would turn 
every feast into a fast, and make even a wedding the 
occasion for a sermon. See ! after a wedding a fu- 
neral. I am glad the bride met not this. Tis bad 
luck for a bride to meet a burying." 

Then there came slowly marching down the street, 
while the people stepped aside and took off their hats, 
a funeral procession. 

" Who hath died ?" asked Stow. " This it is to be 
old and to live retired. I have not heard. Yet, con- 
sidering the length of the procession, one would say a 
prince in Israel. Neighbor," he asked a by-stander, 
"whose funeral is this? Ha! So he is dead! A 
worthy man ; a knight, once sheriff, citizen, and mer- 
cer. You will see, my friend, that we still know how 
to mourn our dead worthies, though we lack the sing- 
ing clerks and priests who formerly went first, chant- 
ing all the way." 

The procession drew nearer. " Now," he said, " I 
take it that you will not know the order of the march, 
wherefore I will interpret. First, therefore, walk the 
children of Christ's Hospital, two by two ; he was, 
therefore, a benefactor or governor of the school. 
Then follow the yeomen conductors, two by two, in 
black coats, with black staves. The poor men of the 
parish, two by two ; then the poor women in like or- 
der ; the choir of the church; and the preacher — he 
has crape over his cassock. Then a gentleman in 
hood and gown bearing the standard. Next three 
gentlewomen in black gowns ; there are the aldermen 
in violet. Those two grave persons are the executors 



TUDOR 



341 



of the deceased. There is the pennon borne by a 
gentleman in hood and gown ; the helm and crest 
borne by a pursuivant ; the coat of arms borne by a 
herald, Clarence, King at Arms." 

After this long procession came the coffin itself, 
borne by six yeomen in black coats ; it was covered 




OBSEQUIES OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



with a black velvet pall. On either side walked two 
gentlemen in hoods and gowns, carrying pennons. 
One of them bore the arms of the deceased, a gentle- 
man of good family; one bore the arms of the City; 
one those of the Mercer's Company ; and one those 
of the Merchant Adventurers. 

Then came the rest of the procession, and my guide 
began again : " There follows the chief mourner, the 
eldest son of the deceased ; then four other mourners, 



342 LONDON 

two by two ; then the Chamberlain and Town Clerk 
of the City ; the Sword-bearer ; the Lord Mayor in 
black ; the Alderman having no blacks." I confess 
that I understood not the distinction, or what fol- 
lowed. " The estates of women having blacks ; Al- 
dermen's wives having no blacks ; the city companies 
represented by their wardens and clerks ; the masters 
of the hospitals having green staves." I could have 
asked why they chose this color, but had no time. 
" Lastly, the neighbors and parishioners carrying ever- 
greens, bay, and rosemary." 

So it was finished. A procession wellnigh a quar- 
ter of a mile in length. 

" Since we must all die," said Master Stow, " it 
must be a singular comfort to the rich and those in 
high place to think that they will be borne to their 
graves in such state and pomp, with, doubtless, a 
goodly monument in the church to perpetuate their 
memory. As for me, I am poor and of no account, 
only a beggar licensed by grace of his Majesty the 
King. My parish church hath a fine pall which it 
will lend me to cover my coffin. Four men will carry 
me across the street and will lower me into my grave. 
And so we end." 

" Not so an end, good Master Stow," I said. " This 
city Knight — his name I did not catch — shall be for- 
gotten before the present generation passes away, 
even though they erect a monument to his meVnory; 
but thy achievements will be remembered as long as 
London Town shall continue. I see already the mon- 
ument that shall be raised to thy memory, in addition 
to the book which will never die." 

" Amen. So be it," he replied. " Come, you have 



TUDOR 343 

seen the merchants in the Royal Exchange, and you 
have seen the shops of Chepe. We will now, before 
the hour of dinner, visit Paul's Church-yard and Paul's 
Walk." 

At the western end of Cheapside was the Church 
of St. Michael le Quern, a small building sixty feet 
long, with a square tower fifty feet high, and a clock 
on the south face. At the back of the church was 
the little conduit. The houses north and south were 
here exactly alike, uniform in size and construction. 
On the south side a broad archway, with a single room 
above, and a gabled roof, opened into Paul's Church- 
yard. " There are six gates," said Stow, " round the 
church-yard. This is called Paul's Gate, or, by some, 
the Little Gate." 

The area included was crowded with buildings and 
planted with trees. On the north side were many 
shops of stationers, each with its sign — the White 
Greyhound, the Flower de Luce, the Angel, the 
Spread Eagle, and others. In the middle rose the 
church towering high, its venerable stones black with 
age and the smoke of London. 

" The place is much despoiled," said the antiquary, 
" since the days of the old religion. Many things 
have been taken down which formerly beautified the 
church-yard. For instance, on this very spot, covered 
now with dwelling-houses and shops, was the Charnel 
Chapel, as old as King Edward the First. It was a 
chapel of the Blessed Virgin. Sir Richard Whitting- 
ton endowed it with a chaplain. There were two 
brotherhoods ; its crypt was filled with bones ; the 
chapel was filled with monuments. One would have 
thought that reverence for the bones would have suf- 



344 LONDON 

ficed to preserve the chapel. But no. It was in the 
reign of Edward the Sixth, when everything was de- 
stroyed. The Duke of Somerset pulled down the 
chapel. The bones he caused to be placed in carts — 
they made a thousand loads — and to be carried to 
Finsbury Fields, where they were thrown out and 
strewn around — a pitiful spectacle. Beside the Char- 
nel Chapel was the Chapel of the Holy Ghost, served 
by the seven chaplains of Holme's College, on the 
south side of the church -yard. That, too, was de- 
stroyed. But most of all I lament the destruction of 
the Pardon Church-yard. Truly this was one of the 
wonders of London. There stands the plot of ground, 
a garden now for the minor canons, but formerly a 
cloister wherein were buried many persons of worship, 
and some of honor, whose monuments were of curious 
workmanship. Round the cloister was painted a 
dance of death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's, 
with verses by John Lydgate, done at the dispense of 
John Carpenter. Over the east quadrant was a fair 
library, given by Walter Sherrington, chancellor to 
Henry the Sixth ; and in the cloister was a chapel, 
built by the father of Thomas a Becket, who lay 
buried there. Of such antiquity was this beautiful 
and venerable place. Neither its age nor its beauty 
could save it. Nor could the lesson concerning the 
presence of death, in this lively portraiture, save it. 
Down it must come, and now there remains but two 
or three old men like myself who can remember the 
Dance of Paul's. Well, the figure of death is gone, 
but death himself we cannot drive away. There is 
Paul's Cross." He pointed to an edifice at the north- 
east angle of the transept. 



TUDOR 345 

I looked with curiosity at this historical edifice, 
which was smaller, as all historical things are, than 
one expected. It was made of timber, mounted upon 
steps of stone, and covered with lead. There was 
room in it for three or four persons ; a low wall was 
built round it. A venerable man was preaching to a 
small congregation, who sat on wooden benches to 
listen. 

" What things have not been heard," said Stow, " at 
Paul's Cross? Here were the folk motes of old, when 
the people were called by the great bell to attend 
their parliament, and take counsel together. No 
Common Council then, my masters, but every man 
his freedom of speech, and his vote. Paul's Cross it 
was which made the Reformation. Here have I heard 
Latimer, Ridley, Coverdale, Lever, and I know not 
whom besides. Here I saw with my own eyes the 
Bexley Rood shown, with all the tricks whereby it 
was made to open its eyes and lips and seem to speak. 
All the Reformation was accomplished from this 
Cross. For a king may set up a bishop, and proclaim 
a doctrine, but the people's hearts must be moved be- 
fore their minds are changed. Think what a change 
was made in their minds in a few short years ! Mass- 
es for the dead, purgatory, intercession of saints, good 
works, submission to the Church, all gone — all swept 
away. And to think that I survive, who was brought 
up in the ancient faith, and have witnessed this great 
revolution in the minds of men. For now they no 
longer even remember their ancient faith, save as the 
creed of those who lit the accursed flame of Smith- 
field, and still light the flames of Madrid. Let us go 
into the church," he said. " But first remember, when 



346 LONDON 

you look round, that in the old days the chapels in 
the aisles were always bright with the burning of wax 
candles — a superstition, because the burning of a can- 
dle is a fond thing to save a man's soul withal. Also, 
in every chapel, all day long, there was the saying of 
masses for the dead — another fond superstition — as if 
a man's soul is to be saved by the repetition of Latin 
prayers by another man. Yet, with these things the 
Church fulfilled its purpose. Now there are no more 
masses ; and the chapels are empty and silent, their 
altars are removed, the paintings are defaced, and the 
Church is given over for worldly things. Come in." 

We entered by the north transept. 

There was much that astonished me in this walk 
through London of the year 1603, but nothing so sur- 
prising and unexpected as St. Paul's Cathedral. I had 
pictured a church narrow, long, somewhat low and 
dark. I found, on the other hand, that it was in every 
respect a most noble church, longer than any other 
cathedral I had ever seen, loftier, also, and well light- 
ed in every part, the style grand and simple. Con- 
sider, therefore, my astonishment at finding the church 
desecrated and abandoned like the common streets 
for the general uses of the people. The choir alone, 
where the old screen still stood, was reserved for pur- 
poses of worship, for there was a public thoroughfare 
through the transepts and across the church. Men 
tramped through, carrying baskets of meat or of bread, 
sacks of coal, bundles, bags, and parcels of all kinds, 
walking as in the streets, turning neither to right nor 
left. Hucksters and peddlers not only walked through, 
but lingered on their way to sell their wares. Serv- 
ants stood and sat about a certain pillar to be hired ; 








DR. SHAW PREACHING AT ST. PAUL S CROSS 



TUDOR 349 

scriveners sat about another pillar writing letters for 
those who required their services ; clergymen in quest 
of a curacy or vicarage gathered at another pillar. 
" Remember the verses," said Stow : 

'"Who wants a churchman that can service say, 
Read first and faire his monthlie homilie, 
And wed and bury and make Christian soules ? 
Come to the left side alley of St. Paul's.' 

" The poor clergymen," he went on, " have fallen 
upon evil times; there is not preferment enough for 
all of them, and many of the country parishes are too 
poor to keep a man, even though he live more hardly 
than a yeoman. 

" This," he added, " is an exchange where almost as 
much business is done as at Sir Thomas Gresham's 
Burse, but of another kind. Here are houses bought 
and sold ; here is money lent on usury ; here are con- 
spiracies hatched, villanies resolved upon ; here is the 
honor of women bought and sold ; here, if a man 
wants a handful of desperadoes for the Spanish Main, 
he may buy them cheap — look at those men standing 
by the tomb that they call Duke Humphrey's." 

They were three tall, lean fellows, each with a long 
rapier and a worn doublet and a hungry face. Only 
to look upon them made one think of John Oxenham 
and his companions. 

" These men should be taking of Panama or Guay- 
aquil," said Stow. " The time grows too peaceful for 
such as those. But see, this is Paul's Walk ; this is 
the Mediterranean." 

The long middle aisle was crowded with a throng 
of men walking to and fro, some alone, some two or 



350 LONDON 

three together. Some of them were merchants or 
retailers, some were countrymen looking about them 
and crying out for the loftiness of the roof and gran- 
deur of the church. But many were young gallants, 
and those were evidently come to show the splendor 
of their dress and to mark and follow the newest fash- 
ions, which, like women, they learned from each other. 
" These lads," said Stow, again echoing my thoughts, 
" were also better on board a stout ship bound for the 
West Indies than at home spending their fortunes 
on their backs, and their time in pranking before the 
other gallants. Yet they are young. Folly sits well on 
the young. In youth we love a brave show, if only 
to please the maidens. Let us not, like the sour 
preacher, cry out upon a young man because he glo- 
rifies his body by fine raiment. To such a jagg'd and 
embroidered sleeve is as bad as the sound of pipe and 
tabor or the sight of a playhouse. Let them preach. 
For all their preaching our gallants will still be fine. 
It is so long since I was young that I have well-nigh 
forgotten the feeling of youth. It is now their time. 
For them the fine fashions ; for them the feasting ; 
for them the love-making ; for us to look on and to 
remember. At the mutability of the fashion we may 
laugh, for there is no sense in it, but only folly. To- 
day the high Alman fashion ; to-morrow the Spanish 
guise ; the day after, the French. See with what an 
air they walk ; head thrown back, hand on hip, leg 
advanced. Saw one ever gallants braver or more 
splendid? No two alike, but each arrayed in his own 
fashion as seemeth him best, though each would have 
the highest ruff and the longest rapier. And look at 
their heads — as many fashions with their hair as with 



TUDOR 351 

their cloak and doublet. One is polled short ; one 
has curls; another, long locks down to his shoulders. 
And some shave their chins ; some have long beards, 
and some short beards. Some wear ear- rings, and 
have love-locks. Why not, good sir? Bones a' me! 
Plenty of time to save and hoard when we grow old. 
The world and the play of the world belong to the 
young. Let them enjoy the good things while they 
can." 

While we were talking in this manner the clock 
struck the hour of eleven. Instantly there was a gen- 
eral movement towards the doors, and before the last 
stroke had finished ringing and echoing in the roof 
the church was empty, save for a few who still lin- 
gered and looked at each other disconsolately. 

" It is the dinner-hour," said Stow. 

"Then," said I, " lead me to some tavern where we 
may dine at our ease." 

" There are many such taverns close to Paul's," he 
replied. "The Three Tuns in Newgate, the Boar's 
Head by London Stone, the Ship at the Exchange, 
the Mermaid in Cornhill, or the Mitre of Chepe. But 
of late my dinners have been small things, and I know 
not, what any town gallant could tell you, where to 
go for the best burnt sack or for sound Rhenish." 

" The Mitre, then, on the chance." 

This tavern, a gabled house, stood at the end of a 
passage leading from Cheapside, near the corner of 
Bread Street. The long room spread for dinner was 
two steps lower than the street, and not too well 
lighted. A narrow table ran down the middle ; upon 
it was spread a fair white cloth ; a clean napkin lay 
for every guest, and a knife. The table was already 



352 LONDON 

filled. Loaves of bread were placed at intervals ; 
they were of various shapes, round and square ; salt 
was also placed at regular intervals. When we en- 
tered, the company stood up politely till we had found 
seats. Then all sat down again. 

We took our seats in a corner, whence we could 
observe the company. Stow whispered in my ear 
that this was a shilling ordinary, and one of the best 
in London, as was proved by the number of guests. 
"Your city gallant," he said, " scents his dinner like a 
hound, and is never at fault. We shall dine well." 

We did dine well ; the boys brought us first roast 
beef with peas and buttered beans. " This," said the 
old man, " is well — everything in season. At mid- 
summer, beef and beans; at Michaelmas, fresh her- 
rings; at All Saints, pork and souse, sprats and spur- 
lings ; in Lent, parsnips and leeks, to soften the 
saltness of the fish ; at Easter, veal and bacon, or at 
least gammon of bacon, and tansy cake with stained 
eggs ; at Martinmas, salt beef. Let old customs be 
still maintained. Methinks we are back in the days 
of bluff King Hal. Well, London was ever a city of 
plenty. Even the craftsman sits down to his brown- 
bread and bacon and his ale. Harry, bring me a tank- 
ard of March beer — and another dish of beef, tell the 
carver." 

After the beef, we were served with roast capons 
and ducks. The absence of forks was partly made up 
by the use of bread, and no one scrupled to take the 
bones and suck them or even crunch them. But there 
was so much politeness and so many compliments 
passing from one to the other, that those small points 
passed almost unnoticed, even by my unaccustomed 



TUDOR 355 

eyes. One quickly learns to think more of the people 
than of their ways in little things. Apart from their 
bravery in dress and their habit of compliment, I was 
struck with the cheerfulness and confidence, even the 
extravagance, of their talk. Their manner was that of 
the soldier, sanguine, confident, and rather loud. Some 
there were who looked ready to ruffle and to swagger. 

The capon was followed by a course of cakes and 
fruit. Especially, the confection known as march- 
pane, in which the explorer lights upon filberts, al- 
monds, and pistachio nuts, buried in sugared cake, hath 
left a pleasing memory in my mind. 

Dinner over, the old man, my guide, offered no op- 
position to a flask of wine, which was brought in a 
glass measure with sugar thrown in. 

"For choice," he said, "give me malmsey full and 
fine, sweetened with sugar. Your French wines are 
too thin for my old blood. Boy, bring a clean pipe 
and tobacco." 

By this time almost every man in the room was 
smoking, though some contented themselves with 
their snuff-boxes. The tables were cleared, the boys 
ran about setting before every man his cup of wine 
and taking the reckoning. 

Tobacco, the old man said, though introduced so 
recently, had already spread over the whole country, 
so that most men and many women took their pipe 
of tobacco every day with as much regularity as their 
cup of wine or tankard of ale. So widespread was 
now the practice that many hundreds made a liveli- 
hood in London alone by the retailing of this herb. 

"And now," he said, when his pipe was reduced to 
ashes, " let us across the river and see the play at the 



356 LONDON 

Globe. The time serves ; we shall be in the house 
before the second flourish." 

There was a theatre, he told me on the way, easier 
of access among the ruins of the Dominicans', or 
Black Friars', Abbey, but that was closed for the mo- 
ment. " We shall learn," he added, " the piece that is 
to be played from the posts of Queenhithe, where we 
take oars." In fact, we found the posts at that port 
placarded with small bills, announcing the perform- 
ance of " Troilus and Cressida." 

Bank Side consisted, I found, of a single row of 
houses, built on a dike, or levee, higher both than 
the river at high tide and the ground behind the 
bank. Before the building of the bank this must 
have been a swamp covered with water at every tide ; 
it was now laid out in fields, meadows, and gardens. 
At one end of Bank Side stood the Clink Prison, 
Winchester House, and St. Mary Overies Church. 
At the other end was the Falcon Tavern, with its 
stairs, and behind it was the Paris Gardens. 

The fields were planted with many noble trees, and 
in every one there was a pond or stagnant ditch which 
showed the nature of the ground. A little to the 
west of the Clink and behind the houses stood the 
Globe Theatre, and close beside it the " Bull-baiting." 
The theatre, erected in the year 1593, was hexagonal 
externally. It was open in the middle, but the stage 
and the galleries within were covered over with a 
thatched roof. Over the door was the sign of the 
house — Hercules supporting the globe, with the le- 
gend, " Totus miindus agit histrionem." 

The interior of the theatre was circular in shape. 
It contained three galleries, one above the other ; the 



TUDOR 



357 



lowest called the " rooms," for seats in which we paid 
a shilling each, contained the better sorts. At each 
side of the stage there were boxes, one of which con- 
tained the music. The stage itself, a stout construc- 
tion of timber, projected far into the pit, or, as Stow 





^"^§PF*Mv,' ! r r:Err... 

&%\ 5 l! irnn I*', % ft 

n ■ % f 



GLOBE THEATRE 



called it, the "yarde." At the back was another 
stage, supported on two columns, and giving the 
players a gallery about ten or twelve feet high, the 
purpose of which we were very soon to find out. On 
each side of the stage were seats for those who paid 
an additional sixpence. Here were a dozen or twenty 
gallants, either with pipes of tobacco, or playing cards 
or dice before the play began. One of them would 
get up quickly with a pretence of impatience, and 
push back his cloak so as to show the richness of his 
doublet below. The young men, whether at the the- 
atre, or in Paul's Walk, or in Chepe, seemed all intent 
upon showing their bravery of attire ; no girls of our 
day could be more vain of their dress, or more critical 
of the dress worn by others. Some of them, however, 
I perceived among the groundlings — that is, the peo- 
ple in the " yarde " — gazing about the house upon 



358 LONDON 

the women in the galleries. Here there were many 
dressed very finely, like ladies of quality, in satin 
gowns, lawn aprons, taffeta petticoats, and gold threads 
in their hair. They seemed to rejoice in being thus 
observed and gazed upon. When a young man had 
found a girl to his taste, he went into the gallery, sat 
beside her, and treated her to pippins, nuts, or wine. 

It was already one o'clock when we arrived. As we 
took our seats the music played its first sounding or 
flourish. There was a great hubbub in the place : 
hucksters went about with baskets crying pippins, 
nuts, and ale; in the "rooms" book-sellers' boys hawk- 
ed about new books ; everybody was talking together ; 
everywhere the people were smoking tobacco, playing 
cards, throwing dice, cheapening books, cracking nuts, 
and calling for ale. The music played a second sound- 
ing. The hubbub continued unabated. Then it played 
the third and last. Suddenly the tumult ceased. The 
piece was about to begin. 

The stage was decorated with blue hangings of silk 
between the columns, showing that the piece was to 
be — in part, at least — a comedy. Across the raised 
gallery at the back was stretched a painted canvas 
representing a royal palace. When the scene was 
changed this canvas became the wall of a city, and the 
actors would walk on the top of the wall ; or a street 
with houses ; or a tavern with it red lattice and its 
sign ; or a tented field. When night was intended, 
the blue hangings were drawn up and exchanged for 
black. 

The hawkers retired and were quiet ; the house set- 
tled down to listen, and the Prologue began. Prologue 
appeared dressed in a long black velvet cloak ; he as- 



TUDOR 



359 



sumed a diffident and most respectful manner ; he 
bowed to the ground. 

" In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece, 
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd. 
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships." 

In this way the mind of the audience was prepared 
for what was to follow. We needed no play-bill. The 
palace before us could be no other than Priam's Palace. 




INSIDE OF THE RED BULL PLAYHOUSE 



360 LONDON 

If there was a field with tents, it must be the battle- 
field and the camp of the Greeks; if there was a wall, 
it must be the wall of Troy. And though the scenery 
was rough, it was enough. One wants no more than 
the unmistakable suggestion ; the poet and the actor 
find the rest. Therefore, though the intrusive gallants 
lay on the stage ; though Troilus was dressed in the 
armor of Tudor-time, and Pandarus wore just such a 
doublet as old Stow himself, we were actually at Troy. 
The boy who played Cressida was a lovely maiden. 
The narrow stage was large enough for the Council of 
Kings, the wooing of lovers, and the battle-field of 
heroes. Women unfaithful and perjured, lovers trust- 
ful, warriors fierce, the alarms of war, fighting and 
slaying, the sweet whispers of love drowned by the 
blare of trumpets ; the loss of lover forgotten in the 
loss of a great captain ; and among the warriors and 
the kings and the lovers, the creeping creatures who 
live upon the weaknesses and the sins of their betters, 
played their parts upon these narrow boards before a 
silent and enraptured house. For three hours we 
were kept out of our senses. There was no need, I 
say, of better scenery ; a quick shifting of the canvas 
showed a battle-field and turned the stage into a vast 
plain covered with armies of Greeks and Romans. 
Soldiers innumerable, as thick as motes in the sun, 
crossed the stage fighting, shouting, challenging each 
other. While they fought, the trumpets blew and the 
drums beat, the wounded fell, and the fight continued 
over these prostrate bodies till they were carried off 
by their friends. The chiefs rushed to the front, crossed 
swords, and rushed off again. " Come, both you cog- 
ging Greeks!" said Troilus, while our cheeks flushed 



TUDOR 361 

and our lips parted. If the stage had been four times 
as broad, if the number of men in action had been 
multiplied by ten, we could not have felt more vividly 
the rage, the joy, the madness of the battle. 

When the play was finished, the ale, the apples, and 
the nuts were passed round, and the noise began again. 
Then the clown came in and began to sing, and the 
music played — but oh, how poor it seemed after the 
great emotions of the play ! The old man plucked me 
by the sleeve, and we went out, and with us most of 
the better sort. 

" The first plays," said the antiquary, " that ever I 
saw were those that were played on stages put up in 
the court-yards of inns, where the galleries afforded 
place for the audience, and the stage was made of 
boards laid upon trestles. Tarleton used to play at 
the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate, and at the Cross Keys, 
Grasse Street. He was reckoned a famous player, yet, 
compared with those we have seen this day, a fustian 
mouther, no doubt. Rude plays they were, and rude 
players ; but I dare say they moved the spectators as 
much as this fine theatre." 

Not far from the Globe stood another building of 
circular form ; a throng of people pressed about the 
doors, and a great noise of barking and shouting came 
from within. " It is the Bull-baiting," said my guide. 
" But the place is full of rough men, whose wrath is 
easily moved, and then out come knives and there is 
a tumult. I am too old for such things. Neverthe- 
less, it is a noble sport ; and when you come to whip- 
ping the blinded bear, who lately broke away and bit 
a piece out of a man's thigh, it passes all." He lin- 
gered as if he would join in it once more with a little 



362 LONDON 

encouragement. Finding none, he walked slowly away 
to the river-bank. 

"This place," said Stow, "hath an ill name, by rea- 
son of evil-doers, who were long permitted to live here 
— a place notorious for three hundred years as the 
common sink of the city. No reputable citizen would 
have his country-house and garden on Bank Side. 
Why, there are private gardens all round London as 
far north as Islington, and as far east as Ratcliffe Cross, 
but none here. The air is fresh and wholesome com- 
ing up the river, the ground fertile : see the trees and 
hedges how they flourish; yet there is never a private 
garden in the place. For this reason the bull-baiting 
was here, and Paris Gardens with its bears — an' it wefe 
Sunday, I would show you the bears — old Harry 
Hunks and Sackerson. For this reason was the Globe 
built here, without the city precincts. Where are the 
theatres and the baitings, the musicians and the shows, 
thither must gather together the poets, singers, mum- 
mers, and all those who live by ministering to the 
merriment and pleasure of the world. A company 
of keen wits they are, their tongues readier than most, 
and their talk bolder. Sober merchants, who think 
more of the matter and less of the manner, like not 
such company." Here the tinkling of a guitar, fol- 
lowed by a burst of laughter, interrupted the discourse. 
" I doubt not," said Stow, " that we have here — 'tis the 
Falcon Tavern — a company of wits and poets and 
players. Let us tarry but the drinking of a single 
flask. It may be, unless their tongues are more free 
than is seemly, that we shall be rewarded." 

The Falcon Inn stood at the western end of Bank 
Side, at the head of the Falcon stairs. In front a 



TUDOR 



363 




1 m|" 



small garden stretched out 

towards the river. 

Part of the garden was 

an arbor, formed by a 

vine raised on poles, 

so as to form a roof 

of leaves. Here was 

a table placed, and 

round the table a 

company of ten 










or a dozen. 
At the head of 
the table was a young gen- 
tleman richly dressed. Be- 
hind him stood two servants 
At his right sat a man of 
about thirty, of large frame 
and already corpulent, his 
brown hair short and 
curly, his beard cut 
short, his eyes singu- 
larly bright. 

"'Tis Ben Jonson," 
whispered Stow. " Let 



SOUTH VIEW OF FALCON TAVERN, ON THE 
BANK SIDE, SOUTHWARK, AS IT AP- 
PEARED IN 1805 



364 LONDON 

us sit here, without the arbor, so that we can drink and 
listen. Ben is but lately out of prison, where he was 
cast for writing reflections on the Scottish nation. 
'Twas said that he would lose his ears and have his 
nose slit, but the King showed mercy. He at the 
head of the table is some young nobleman, patron of 
poets, but, alas ! I live now so retired that I know 
not his name. On the left of him is William Shakes- 
peare, whom some think a better poet than Ben — a 
quiet man who says little. I have seen him here be- 
fore. 'Twas he wrote the piece we have seen this day. 
He has a share in the theatre of Blackfriars. Burbage, 
the actor, sits next to Shakespeare, and then Alleyn 
and Hemying opposite, and Henslowe. And there is 
John Marston, another poet." 

Alleyn it was who held the guitar. At this time he 
was in the prime of life, not yet forty, his face full of 
mobility and quickness. He ran his fingers carelessly 
over the notes, and then began to sing in a clear, high 
voice : 



" 'Twas I that paid for all things, 
'Twas others drank the wine ; 
I cannot now recall things, 
Live but a fool to pine. 
'Twas I that beat the bush, 
The bird to others flew ! 
For she, alas ! for she, alas ! hath left me. 
Falero — lero— loo ! 

" If ever that Dame Nature 
(For this false lover's sake) 
Another pleasant creature 
Like unto her would make, 



TUDOR 365 

Let her remember this, 

To make the other twice ! 

For this, alas ! for this, alas ! hath left me. 

Falero— lero — loo ! 

' No riches now can raise me, 
No want make me despair; 
No misery amaze me, 
Nor yet for want I care. 
I have lost a World itself; 
My earthly Heaven, adieu ! 
Since she, alas ! since she, alas ! hath left me. 
Falero — lero — loo !" 



"Sir," said the young gentleman, " 'tis an excellent 
song well sung. I drink your health." 

This he did rising, and very courteously. 

Now, in the talk that followed I observed that, 
while the players amused by relating anecdotes, Ben 
Jonson made laughter by what he said, speaking in 
language which belongs to scholars and to books, and 
that Shakespeare sat for the most part in silence, yet 
not in the silence of a blockhead in the presence of 
wits, and when he spoke it was to the purpose. Also 
I remarked that the guitar passed from hand to hand, 
and that everybody could play and sing, and that the 
boldness of the talk showed the freedom of their 
minds. Who can repeat the unrestrained conversa- 
tion of a tavern company? Nay, since some of them 
were more than merry with the wine, it would be an 
ill turn to set down what they said. We drank our 
cups and listened to the talk. 

Presently Ben Jonson himself sang'one of his own 
songs, in a rough but not unmelodious voice: 



366 LONDON 

" Follow a shadow, it still flies you ; 
Seem to fly it, it will pursue. 
So court a mistress, she denies you ; 
Let her alone — she will court you. 
Say, are not women truly, then, 
Styled but the shadows of us men ? 

" At morn or even shades are longest, 
At noon they are or short or none ; 
So men at weakest, they are strongest, 
But grant us perfect, they're not known. 
Say, are not women truly, then, 
Styled but the shadows of the men ?" 

We came away about sunset, or near half-past eight 
in the evening. Some of the company were by this 
time merry with their wine, and as we rose one began 
to bawl an old tavern ditty, drumming on the wood 
of the guitar with his knuckles : 

" There was a Ewe had three lambs, 
And one of them was blacke ; 
There was a man had three sons — 
Jeffrey, James, and Jack. 

" The one was hanged, the other drown'd ; 
The third was lost and never found ; 
The old man he fell in a sound — 
Come fill us a cup of Sacke." 

It was nearly high tide on the river, which spread 
itself out full and broad between the banks, reflecting 
the evening glow in the western sky. Numberless 
swans floated about the stream. It was also covered 
with boats. Some were state barges belonging to 
great people, with awnings and curtains, painted and 
gilt, filled with ladies who sang as the boat floated 



TUDOR 367 

quietly with the current to the music of guitars. 
Others were the cockle-shell of humble folk. Here 
was the prentice, taking his sweetheart out upon the 
river for the freshness of the evening air ; here the 
citizen, with his wife and children in a wherry ; here 
the tilt -boat, with its load of passengers coming up 
from Greenwich to Westminster. There were also 
the barges and lighters laden with hay, wool, and 
grain, waiting for the tide to turn in order to unload 
at Queenhithe or Billingsgate. 

" This," said Stow, " is the best place of any for a 
prospect of the city. Here we can count the spires 
and the towers. I know them every one. Look how 
Paul's rises above the houses. His walls are a hun- 
dred feet high. His tower that you see is near three 
hundred feet high, and his spire, which has been 
burned down these forty years, was two hundred feet 
more. Alas, that goodly spire ! It is only from this 
bank that you can see the great houses along the 
river. There the ruins of White Friars — there those 
of the Dominicans. Ruins were they not, but splendid 
buildings in the days of my youth. Baynard's Castle, 
the Steel Yard, Cold Harbor, the Bridge — there they 
stand. The famous city of Venice itself, I dare swear, 
cannot show so fair a prospect. See, now the sun 
lights up the windows of Nonesuch on the Bridge — 
see how the noble structure is reflected in the water 
below. Good sir," he turned to me with glowing face 
and eyes aflame with enthusiasm, " there is no other 
city in the whole world, believe me, which may com- 
pare with this noble City of London, of which — glory 
to God ! — I have been permitted to become the hum- 
ble historian." 



368 LONDON 

We took boat at Falcon stairs — Stow told me there 
were two thousand boats and three thousand water- 
men on the river — and we returned to Queenhithe, 
the watermen shouting jokes and throwing strong 
words at each other, which seems to be their custom. 
By the time we landed the sun had gone down. 
Work for the day was over, and the streets were 
thronged with people. First, however, it was neces- 
sary to think of supper. My guide took me to an old 
inn in Dowgate ; you entered it as at the Mitre by a 
long passage. This was the well-known Swan, where 
we found a goodly company assembled. They seemed 
to be merchants all ; grave men, not given to idle 
mirth, so that the conversation was more dull (if more 
seemly) than at the Falcon. For supper they served 
us roast pullet with a salad of lettuce, very good, and 
a flask of right Canary. My ancient guide swore — 
" Bones a' me" — that it contained the very spirit and 
essence of the Canary grape. " Sir," he said, " can a 
man live in London for eighty years and fail to dis- 
cern good wine from bad ? Why, the city drinks up, I 
believe, all the good wine in the world. Amsterdam 
is built on piles set in the ooze and mud. London 
floats on puncheons, pipes, and hogsheads of the best 
and choicest. This is truly rare Canary. Alas! I am 
past eighty. I shall drink but little more." 

So he drank and warmed his old heart and dis- 
cussed further, but it would be idle to set down all he 
said, because most of it is in books, and my desire has 
been to record only what cannot be found, by the cu- 
rious, already printed. 

After supper we had more wine and tobacco. Some 
of the company fell to card -playing, some to dice. 



TUDOR 369 

Then the door opened, and a man came in with two 
children, boys, who sang with him while he played the 
guitar. They sang madrigals very sweetly, each his 
own part truly and with justice. When they finished, 
the boys went around with a platter and collected 
farthings. And having paid our reckoning we went 
away. 

In the streets outside, the women sat at their doors 
or stood about gossiping with each other. At every 
corner a bonfire was merrily burning. This was part- 
ly because it was the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, 
partly because in the city they always lit bonfires in 
the summer months to purify and cleanse the air. 
But because of the day every door was shadowed with 
green branches — birch, long fennel, St. John's wort, 
orpin, white lilies, and such like — garnished with gar- 
lands of beautiful flowers. They had also hung up 
lamps of colored glass, with oil to burn all the night, 
so that the streets looked gay and bright with the red 
light of the bonfires playing on the tall gabled fronts, 
and the red and green light of the lamps. From all 
the taverns, as we passed, came the sound of music, 
singing, and revelry, with the clink of glasses and the 
uplifting of voices thick with wine. There was the 
sound of music and singing from the private houses. 
Everywhere singing — everywhere joy and happiness. 
In the streets the very prentices and their sweethearts 
danced, to the pipe and tabor, those figures called 
the Brawl and the Canary, and better dancing, with 
greater spirit and more fidelity to the steps, had I 
never before seen. 

At last we stopped once more before the door of 
John Stow's house. 
24 



370 LONDON 

" Sir," he said, taking my hand, " the time has come 
to bid you farewell. It has been a great honor — be- 
lieve me — to converse with one of a generation yet to 
come, and a great satisfaction to learn that my name 
will live so long beside those of the poets of this noble 
age. Many things there are into which I would fain 
have inquired. The looking into futurity is an idle 
thing, yet I would fam have asked if you have put a 
new steeple on Paul's ; if you still suffer the desecra- 
tion of that place ; if London will spread still more 
beyond her walls ; if her trade will still more increase ; 
if the Spaniard will be always permitted to hold the 
Continent of America ; if the Pope will still be reign- 
ing ; with many other things. But you came this day 
to learn, and I to teach. When next you come, suffer 
me in turn to put questions. And now, good sir, fare- 
well. Behold!" He raised his hands in admiration. 
" I have spent a day — a whole day — with a man of the 
nineteenth century ! ! Bones a' me ! ! !" 

So he went within and shut the door. 



VIII 

CHARLES THE SECOND 

IT is not proposed here to swell with any new 
groans the general chorus of lamentation over 
the deplorable morals of King Charles's court. Let 
us acknowledge that we want all the available groans 
for the deplorable morals of our own time. Let us 
leave severely on one side Whitehall, with the indo- 
lent king : his mistresses, his singing boys, his gaming- 
tables, his tinkling guitars, his feasting and his dan- 
cing. We will have nothing whatever to do with 
Chiffinch and his friends, nor with Rochester, nor 
with Nell Gwynne, nor with Old Rowley himself. 
Therefore, of course, we can have nothing to do with 
Messrs. Wycherley, Congreve, and company. It is, I 
know, the accepted excuse for these dramatists that 
their characters are not men and women, but puppets. 
To my humble thinking they are not puppets at all, 
but living and actual human creatures — portraits of 
real men and women who haunted Whitehall. Let 
us keep to the .east of Temple Bar : hither come 
whispers, murmurs, rumors, of sad doings at court : 
sober and grim citizens, still touched with the Puritan 
spirit, speak of these rumors with sorrow and disap- 



372 LONDON 

pointment; they had hoped better things after the 
ten years' exile, yet they knew so little and were al- 
ways ready to believe so well of the King — and his 
Majesty was always so friendly to the City — that the 
reports remained mere reports. It is really no use to 
keep a king unless you are able to persuade yourself 
that he is wiser, nobler, more virtuous, braver, and 
greater than ordinary mortals. Indeed, as the head 
and leader of the nation, he is officially the wisest, 
noblest, bravest, best, and greatest among us, and is 
so recognized in the Prayer-book. Even those who 
are about the court, and therefore are so unhappy as 
to be convinced of the exact contrary, do their best 
to keep up the illusion. The great mass of mankind 
still continue to believe that moral and intellectual 
superiority goes with the crown and belongs to the 
reigning sovereign. The only change that has come 
over nations living under the monarchic form of gov- 
ernment as regards their view of kings is that they 
no longer believe all this of the reigning sovereign's 
predecessor; as regards the present occupant of the 
throne, of course. Are the citizens of a republic sim- 
ilarly convinced as regards their President ? 

The evil example of the court, therefore, produced 
very little effect upon the morals of the City. At 
first, indeed, the whole nation, tired to death of grave 
faces, sober clothes, Puritanic austerity, godly talk, 
downcast eyes, and the intolerable nuisance of talk- 
ing and thinking perpetually about the very slender 
chance of getting into heaven, rushed into a reckless 
extreme of brave and even gaudy attire and generous 
feasting, the twang of the guitar no longer prohibited, 
nor the singing of love ditties, nor the dancing of the 



CHARLES THE SECOND 375 

youths and maids forbidden. Even this natural re- 
action affected only the young. The heart of the City 
was, and remained for a hundred and fifty years after- 
wards, deeply affected with the Puritanic spirit. It 
has been of late years the fashion of the day — led by 
those who wish to saddle us again with sacerdotalism 
— to scoff and laugh at this spirit. It has nearly dis- 
appeared now, even in America ; but we may see in it 
far more than what has been called the selfish desire 
of each man to save his own soul. We may see in it, 
especially, the spirit of personal responsibility, the loss 
of which — if we ever do lose it, should authority be 
able to reassert her old power — will be fatal to intel- 
lectual or moral advance. Personal responsibility 
brings with it personal dignity, enterprise, courage, 
patience, all the virtues. Only that man who stands 
face to face with his Maker, with no authority inter- 
vening, can be called free. But when the young men 
of the City had had their fling, in the first rush and 
whirlpool of the Restoration, they settled down 
soberly to business again. The foundation of the 
Hudson's Bay Company proves that the Elizabethan 
spirit of enterprise was by no means dead. The Insti- 
tution of the Royal Society, which had its first home 
in Gresham College, proves that the City thought of 
other useful things besides money-getting. The last 
forty years of the seventeenth century, however, might 
have been passed over as presenting no special points 
of change, except in the gradual introduction of tea 
and coffee. As London was in the time of Elizabeth, 
so it was, with a few changes, in the time of Charles 
the Second. A little variation in the costumes; a 
little alteration in the hour of dinner; a greatly ex- 



376 LONDON 

tended trade over a much wider world ; and, in all 
other respects, the same city. 

Two events — two disasters — give special impor- 
tance to this period. I mean the Plague and the 
Fire. 

The Plague was the twelfth of its kind which visited 
the City during a period of seven hundred years. 
The twelfth and the last. Yet not the worst. That 
of the year 1407 is said to have killed half the popu- 
lation : that of 1 5 17, if historians are to be believed in 
the matter of numbers, which is seldom the case, killed 
more than half. Of all these plagues we hear no more 
than the bare, dreadful fact, " Plague — so many thou- 
sands killed." That is all that the chronicles tell us. 
Since there was no contemporary historian we know 
nothing more. How many plagues have fallen upon 
poor humanity, with countless tragedies and appalling 
miseries, but with no historian? We know all about 
the Plague of Athens, the Plague of Florence, the 
Plague of London — the words require no dates — but 
what of the many other plagues ? 

The plague was no new thing ; it was always threat- 
ening ; it broke out on board ship ; it was carried 
about in bales ; it was brought from the Levant with 
the figs and the spices; some sailor was stricken with 
it; reports were constantly flying about concerning it; 
now it was at Constantinople ; now at Amsterdam ; 
now at Marseilles ; now at Algiers ; everybody knew 
that it might come again at any time. But it delayed ; 
the years went on ; there was no plague ; the younger 
people ceased to dread it. Then, like the Deluge, 
which may stand as the type of disaster long promised 
and foretold, and not to be avoided, yet long delayed, 



CHARLES THE SECOND 377 

it came at last. And when it went away it had de- 
stroyed near upon a hundred thousand people. 

We read the marvellous history of the Plague as it 
presented itself to the imagination of Daniel Defoe, 
who wrote fifty years after the event. Nothing ever 
written in the English language holds the reader with 
such a grip as his account of the Plague. It seems as 
if no one at the time could have been able to speak or 
think of anything but the Plague ; we see the horror 
of the empty streets ; we hear the cries and lamenta- 
tions of those who are seized and those who are be- 
reaved. The cart comes slowly along the streets with 
the man ringing a bell and crying, " Bring out your 
dead ! Bring out your dead !" We think of the great 
fosses communes, the holes into which the dead were 
thrown in heaps and covered with a little earth ; we 
think of the grass growing in the streets ; the churches 
deserted ; the clergymen basely flying ; their places 
taken by the ejected nonconformists who preach of 
repentance and forgiveness — no time, this, for the Cal- 
vinist to number the Elect on his ten fingers — to as 
many as dare assemble together ; the roads black with 
fugitives hurrying from the abode of Death ; we hear 
the frantic mirth of revellers snatching to-night a 
doubtful rapture, for to-morrow they die. The City is 
filled with despair. We look into the pale faces of 
those who venture forth ; we hear the sighs of those 
who meet; nobody — nobody, we imagine — can think 
of aught else than the immediate prospect of death 
for himself and all he loves. 

Pepys, however, who remained in the City most of 
the time, not only notes down calmly the progress of 
the pestilence, but also allows us to see the effect it 



378 LONDON 

produced on Lis own mind. It is very curious. He 
reads the Bills of Mortality as they are published : he, 
as well as Defoe, records the silent and deserted ap- 
pearance of the town : he confesses, now and then, 
that he is fearful ; but his mind is all the time 
entirely occupied with his own advancement and his 
own pleasures. He feasts and drinks with his friends; 
he notes that " we were very merry." Occasionally 
he betrays a little anxiety, but he is never panic- 
stricken. 

In the entry of September, when the Plague was at 
its height, and the terror and misery of London at 
their worst, he writes : "To the Tower, and there sent 
for the weekly Bill, and find 8252 dead in all, and of 
these 6978 of the Plague, which is a most dreadful 
number and shows reason to fear that the Plague hath 
got that hold that it will yet continue among us. 
Thence to Branford, reading 'The Villaine,' a pretty 
good play, all the way. There a coach of Mr. Povy's 
stood ready for me, and he at his house ready to come 
in, and so we together merrily to Swakely to Sir R. 
Viner." And the same week, hearing that Lord Sand- 
wich with the fleet had taken some prizes — " the re- 
ceipt of this news did put us all into an extasy of joy 
that it inspired into Sir J. Minner and Mr. Evelyn 
such a spirit of mirth, that in all my life I never met 
with so merry a two hours as our company this night 
was." Perhaps, however, this excess of mirth was not 
due to insensibility, but was a natural reaction from 
the gloom and terror that stalked the streets. 

The summer of 1665 was curiously hot and dry. 
Every day a blue sky, a scorching sun, and no breath 
of wind. If bonfires were kindled to purify the air, 



CHARLES THE SECOND 379 

the smoke ascended and hung overhead in a motion- 
less cloud. From May till September, no wind, no 
rain, no cloud, only perpetual sunshine to mock the 
misery of the prostrate city. 

At the first outbreak of the disease the people be- 
gan to run away ; the roads were black with carts 
carrying their necessaries into the country ; the City 
clergy for the most part deserted their churches; 
physicians ran from the disease they could not cure, 
pretending that they had to go away with their pa- 
tients; the Court left Whitehall; the Courts of Justice 
were removed to Oxford. The Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, however, remained at Lambeth Palace, and the 
Duke of Albemarle and Lord Craven remained in their 
town houses. And the Lord Mayor, Sir John Lau- 
rence, ordered that the aldermen, sheriffs, common 
councilmen, and all constables and officers of the City 
should remain at their posts. 

As the Plague increased, business of all kinds was 
suspended ; works were closed ; ships that arrived 
laden, went down the river again and across to Amster- 
dam ; ships that waited for their cargoes lay idle in the 
Pool by hundreds ; shops were shut ; manufactories 
and industries of all kinds were stopped. 

Consider what this means. London was not only a 
city of foreign trade and a great port, but a city, also, 
of many industries. It made an enormous quantity 
of things ; the very livelihood of the City was derived 
from its trade and its industries. These once stopped, 
the City perished. We have seen how the Roman 
Augusta decayed and died. The people had no longer 
any trade or any work, or any food. Therefore, the 
City died. The same thing, from different causes, 



38o 



LONDON 




rfr^Mf»Miu.E[ 



".'V BM n «i MiUs 



happened again. Trade 
and work were suspend- 
ed. Therefore, the people 
began to starve. 

Defoe, in his catalogu- 
ing way, which is the 
surest way of bringing a 
thing home to every one's 
understanding, enumer- 
ates all the different trades 




HUNGERFORD MARKET 



thrown out of work. That is to say, he catalogues all 
the trades of London. Let it be understood that the 
population of London was then about 350,000. This 



CHARLES THE SECOND 381 

means about 100,000 working men of sixteen and up- 
ward. All these craftsmen, living from week to week 
upon their wages, with nothing saved, were turned out 
of employment almost at the same time — they and 
their families left to starve. Not only this, but clerks, 
book-keepers, serving-men, footmen, maid-servants, and 
apprentices were all turned into the streets together. 
Add to this the small shopkeepers and retailers of 
every kind, who live by their daily or weekly takings, 
and we shall have a population of a quarter of a mill- 
ion to keep. 

The Lord Mayor, assisted by the Archbishop and 
the two lords, Albemarle and Craven, began and main- 
tained a service of relief for these starving multitudes. 
The King sent a thousand pounds a week ; the City 
gave six hundred pounds a week ; merchants and rich 
people sent thousands every week ; it is said that a 
hundred thousand pounds a week was contributed ; 
this seems too great a sum — yet a whole city out of 
work ! Employment was found for some of the men 
as constables, drivers of the carts that carried the dead 
to the burial-places, and so forth — and for the women 
as nurses. And, thanks to the Mayor's exertions, 
there was a plentiful supply of provisions during the 
whole time. 

The disease continued to spread. It was thought 
that dogs and cats carried about infection. All those 
in the City were slaughtered. They even tried, for the 
same reason, to poison the rats and mice, but appar- 
ently failed. The necessity of going to market was a 
great source of danger : people were warned to lift 
their meat off the counter by iron hooks. Many 
families isolated themselves. The journal of one such 



382 



LONDON 



household remains. The household, which lived in 
Wood Street, Cheapside, consisted of the master, a 
wholesale grocer, his wife, five children, two maid- 
servants, two apprentices, a porter, and a boy. He 
sent the boy to his friends in the country; he gave the 
elder apprentice the rest of his time ; and he stationed 
his porter, Abraham, outside his door, there to sit 
night and day. Every window was closed, and noth- 
ing suffered to enter the house except at one upper 
window, which was opened to admit necessaries, but 
only with fumigation of gunpowder. At first the 
Plague, while it raged about Holborn, Fleet Street, 
and the Strand, came not within the City. This care- 
ful man, however, fully expected it, and when it did 
appear in July he locked himself up for good. Then 




CHEAPSIDB 



they knew nothing except what the porter told them, 
and what they read in the Bills of Mortality. But all 
day long the knell never ceased to toll. Yery soon 



CHARLES THE SECOND 383 

all the houses in the street were infected and visited 
except their own. And when every day, and all day 
long, he heard nothing but bad news, growing daily 
worse, and when every night he heard the dismal bell 
and the rumbling of the dead cart, and the voice of 
the bellman crying, " Bring out your dead !" he be- 
gan to give up all for lost. First, however, he made 
arrangements for the isolation of any one who should 
be seized. Three times a day they held a service of 
prayer ; twice a week they observed a day of fasting ; 
one would think that this maceration of the flesh was 
enough in itself to invite the Plague. Every morning 
the father rose early and went round to each chamber 
door asking how its inmates fared. When they replied 
" Well," he answered " Give God thanks." Outside, 
Abraham sat all day long, hearing from every passer- 
by the news of the day, which grew more and more 
terrifying, and passing it on to the upper window, 
where it was received with a fiery fumigation. One 
day Abraham came not. But his wife came. " Abra- 
ham," she said, " died of the Plague this morning, 
and as for me, I have it also, and I am going home to 
die. But first I will send another man to take my 
husband's place." So the poor faithful woman crept 
home and died, and that night with her husband was 
thrown into a great pit with no funeral service except 
the cursing and swearing of the rough fellows who 
drove the cart. The other man came, but in a day or 
two he also sickened and died. Then they had no 
porter and no way of communicating with the outer 
world. They remained prisoners, the whole family, 
with the two maids, for five long months. I suppose 
they must have devised some necessary communi- 



384 LONDON. 

cation with the outer world, or they would have 
starved. 

Presently the Plague began to decrease ; its fury 
was spent. But it was not until the first week of De- 
cember that this citizen ventured forth. Then he took 
all his family to Tottenham for a change of air. One 
would think they needed it after this long confine- 
ment, and the monotony of their prison fare. 

By this time the people were coming back fast — too 
fast ; because their return caused a fresh outbreak. 
Then there was a grand conflagration of everything 
which might harbor the plague — curtains, sheets, 
blankets, hangings, stuffs, clothes — whatever there was 
in which the accursed thing might linger. And every 
house in which a case had occurred was scoured and 
whitewashed, while the church-yards were all covered 
with fresh earth at least a foot thick. 

All this is a twice-told tale. But some tales may 
be told again and again. Consider, for instance, apart 
from the horror of this mighty pestilence, the loss and 
injury inflicted upon the City. If it is true that a 
hundred thousand perished, about half of them would 
be the craftsmen, the skilled workmen who created 
most of the wealth of London. How to replace these 
men ? They could never be replaced. 

Consider, again, that London was the great port for 
the reception and transmission of all the goods in the 
whole country. The stoppage of trade in London 
meant the stoppage of trade over the whole land. 
The cloth-makers of the West, the iron-founders, the 
colliers, the tin mines, the tanners, all were stopped, 
all were thrown out of work. 

Again, consider the ruin of families. How many 



CHARLES THE SECOND 



3»5 










*•%! 



FLEET STKIiET 



children of flourishing master- workmen, tradesmen, 
and merchants were reduced to poverty by the death 
of the father, and suddenly lowered to the level of 
working-men, happy if they were still young enough 

2=5 



386 LONDON 

to learn a craft? How many lost their credit in the 
general stoppage of business? How many fortunes 
were cast away when no debts could be collected, 
and when the debtors themselves were all destroyed ? 
And in cases when children were too young to pro- 
tect themselves, how many were plundered of every- 
thing when their parents were dead? 

Defoe, writing what he had learned by conversa- 
tion with those who could remember this evil time, 
speaks of strange extravagances on the part of those 
who were infected. Very likely there were such 
things. Not, however, that they were common, as 
his story would have us believe. I prefer the picture 
of the imprisoned citizen, which represents a city sit- 
ting in sorrowful silence, the people crouching in their 
houses in silence or in prayer, gazing helpless upon 
each other, while the blue sky and the hot sun look 
down upon them, and the Plague grows busier every 
day. 

When it abated at last, and the runaways went 
back to town, Pepys among them, he notes the amaz- 
ing number of beggars. These poor creatures were 
the widows or children of the craftsmen, or the crafts- 
men themselves whose ruin we have just noted. 

This was in January. The Plague, however, dragged 
on. In the week ending March i, 1666, there were 
forty -two deaths from it. In the month of July it 
was still present in London, and reported to be raging 
at Colchester. In August, Pepys finds the house of 
one of his friends in Fenchurch Street shut up with 
the Plague, and it was said to be as bad as ever 
at Greenwich. This was the last entry about it, be- 
cause in a week or two there was to happen an 



CHARLES THE SECOND 387 

event of even greater importance than this great 
Plague. 

Observe that this was the last appearance of the 
Plague. Since 1665 it has never appeared in Europe, 
except in Marseilles in the year 1720. It is not ex- 
tinct. It smoulders, like Vesuvius. There is nothing, 
so far as can be understood, to prevent its reappear- 
ance in London or anywhere else, unless it is the 
improved sanitation of modern cities. For instance, it 
was at Astrakhan in 1879. But it travelled no far- 
ther west. It is generated in the broad miasmatic val- 
ley of the Euphrates ; there it lies, ready to be car- 
ried about the world, the last gift of Babylon to the 
nations. When that great city is built again, the cen- 
tre of commerce between Europe and the East, the 
valley will once more be drained and cultivated, and 
the Plague will die and be no more seen. But who 
is to rebuild Babylon and to repeople the land of the 
Assyrians ? 

There were two great Plagues of London in the 
seventeenth century before this — the last and great- 
est — one in 1603 and the other in 1625. I have be- 
fore me two contemporary tracts upon these plagues. 
They illustrate what has been said of the Plague of 
1665. Exactly the same things happened. In listen- 
ing either to him of 1603, or to him of 1625, one hears 
the voice of 1665. I think that these tracts have 
never before been quoted. Yet it is quite clear to me 
that Defoe must have seen them both. 

The first is called The Wonderful Year, 1603. The 
author, who is anonymous, begins with weeping over 
the death of Queen Elizabeth. This tribute paid, 
with such exaggerated grief as belongs to his sense 



388 LONDON 

of loyalty, he rejoices, with equal extravagance, over 
the accession of James. This brings him to his real 
subject : 

A stifle and freezing horror sucks vp the riuers of my blood: 
my haire stands an ende with the panting of my braines: mine 
eye balls are ready to start out, being beaten with the billowes 
of my teares: out of my weeping pen does the inke mournfully 
and more bitterly than gall drop on the pale-faced paper, even 
when I do but thinke how the bowels of my sicke country 
have bene torne. Apollo, therefore, and you bewitching siluer- 
tongd Muses, get you gone : I inuocate none of your names. 
Sorrow and truth, sit you on each side of me, whilst I am de- 
livered of this deadly burden : prompt me that I may utter 
ruthfull and passionate condolement : arme my trembling hand, 
that I may boldly rip up and anatomize the ulcerous body of 
this Ant hropophagized Plague : lend me art (without any coun- 
terfeit shadowing) to paint and delineate to the life the whole 
story of this mortall and pestiferous battaile. And you the 
ghosts of those more (by many) than 40000, that with the virulent 
poison of infection haue bene driuen out of your earthly dwell- 
ings : you desolate hand-wringing widowes, that beate your 
bosomes over your departing husbands : you wofully distracted 
mothers that with disheueld haire falne into swounds, while you 
lye kissing the insensible cold lips of your breathlesse infants: 
you out-cast and down-troden orphans, that shall many a yeare 
hence remember more freshly to mourne, when your mourning 
garments shall looke olde and be forgotten ; and you the Genii 
of all those emptyed families, whose habitations are now among 
the Antipodes; joine all your hands together, and with your 
bodies cast a ring about me ; let me behold your ghastly viz- 
ages, that my paper may receiue their true pictures : Eccho 
forth your grones through the hollow trunke of my pen, and 
raine downe your gummy tears into mine incke, that even mar- 
ble bosomes may be shaken with terrour, and hearts of ada- 
mant melt into compassion. 

In this extravagant vein he plunges into the sub- 



CHARLES THE SECOND 39 1 

ject. Death, he says, like stalking Tambcrlaine, hath 
pitched his tent in the suburbs ; the Plague is mus- 
ter-master and marshal of the field ; the main army is 
a " mingle-mangle " of dumpish mourners, merry sex- 
tons, hungry coffin - sellers, and nastie grave-makers. 
All who could run away, he says, did run ; some rid- 
ing, some on foot, some without boots, some in slip- 
pers, by water, by land — 'in shoals sworn they." Then 
the Plague invaded the City. Every house looked 
like Bartholomew's Hospital; the people drank mith- 
ridatum and dragon-water all day long; they stuffed 
their ears and noses with rue and wormwood. Laza- 
rus lay at the door, but Dives was gone ; there were 
no dogs in the streets, for the Plague killed them all; 
whole families were carried to the grave as if to bed. 
"What became of our Phisitions in this massacre? 
They hid their synodical heads as well as the prowd- 
est ; for their phlebotomes, losinges, and electuaries, 
with their diacatholicons, diacodions, amulets, and an- 
tidotes had not so much strength to hold life and soule 
together as a pot of Pindar's ale and a nutmeg." When 
servants and prentices were attacked by the disease, 
they were too often thrust out-of-doors by their mas- 
ters, and perished " in fields, in ditches, in common 
cages, and under stalls." Then he begins to tell the 
gruesome stories that belong to every time of Plague. 
In this he is followed by Defoe, who most certainly 
saw this pamphlet. What happened in 1603 also hap- 
pened in 1665. Those who could run away did so ; 
the physicians — who could do nothing — ran ; the rich 
merchants ran ; there was a general stoppage of trade; 
there was great suffering among the poor; those 
who dared to sit together, sat in the taverns drinking 



392 LONDON 

till they lost their fears. His stories told, the writer 
concludes : 

I could fill a whole uolume, and call it the second part of 
the hundred mery tales, onely with such ridiculous stuffe as 
this of the Justice ; but Dii meliora ; I haue better matters to 
set my wits about : neither shall you wring out of my pen 
(though you lay it on the racke) the villainies of that damnd 
Keeper, who killd all she kept ; it had bene good to haue made 
her Keeper of the common Jayle, and the holes of both Count- 
ers; for a number lye there that wish to be rid out of this 
motley world ; shee would haue tickled them and turned them 
ouer the thumbs. I will likewise let the Church-warden in 
Thames-street sleep (for hees now past waking) who being re- 
quested by one of his neighbors to suffer his wife or child 
(that was then dead) to lye in the Church-yard, answered in 
a mocking sort, he keept that lodging for himselfe and his 
household : and within three days after was driuen to hide his 
head in a hole himself. Neither will I speake a word of a poore 
boy (seruant to a Chandler) dwelling thereabouts, who being 
struck to the heart by sicknes, was first caryed away by water, 
to be left anywhere; but landing being denyed by an army 
of brownebill men, that kept the shore, back againe was he 
brought, and left in an out-celler, where lying groueling and 
groaning on his face, among fagots (but not one of them set 
on fire to comfort him), there continued all night, and dyed 
miserably for want of succor. Nor of another poore wretch, in 
the Parish of St. Mary Oueryes, who being in the morning 
throwne, as the fashion is, into a graue vpon a heap of car- 
cases, that kayd for their complement, was found in the after- 
noone gasping and gaping for life: but by these tricks, imag- 
ining that many thousand haue bene turned wrongfully off the 
ladder of life, and praying that Derick or his executors, may 
hue to do those a good turne, that haue done so to others : 
Hie Jim's Priami; heeres an end of an old song. 

The second tract was written by one whose Chris- 
tian name is surely Jeremiah. It is called Vox Civi- 



CHARLES THE SECOND 393 

tatis. It is the Lamentation of London under the 
Plague. The City mourns her departed merchants. 
" Issachar stands still for want of work." Her children 
are starving ; her apprentices, " the children of knights 
and justices of the county," are rated with beggars, 
and buried in the highway like malefactors. As for 
the clergy, they did not forsake their flocks ; they 
sent them away — all who could go — before they them- 
selves fled. The physicians and the surgeons have 
fled. Yet some have remained — parsons, physicians, 
and surgeons. The Lord Mayor, too, remained at his 
post. Then he argues that no one, in whatever sta- 
tion, has the right to desert his post. None are use- 
less. He declaims against the inhumanity of those 
who refuse shelter to a stricken man, and he calls upon 
those who have food to return. The whole composi- 
tion is filled with pious ejaculations; it certainly is 
the work of some city clegyman. London is stricken 
for her sins ; yet there is mercy in the chastisement. 
The author is always finding consolation in the 
thought that the puuishment will lead to reformation. 
Yet the work is a cry of suffering, of pity, and of in- 
dignation. The writer does not relate, he alludes to 
what everybody knows ; yet he makes us see the 
workshops closed, 'Change deserted, churches shut, all 
the better class fled, prentices thrust out to die in the 
streets, the people with no work and no money, the 
servants left to guard the warehouses dead ; even in 
Cheapside not a place where one can change a purse 
of gold; "Watling Street like an empty Cloyster." 
The Plague is terrible, but it is the chastisement of 
the Lord. He hath taken the City into His own 

hands; that may be borne; the worst, the most terri- 
25—2 



394 LONDON 

ble thing is the desertion of the City and the people 
by the masters ; the abandonment of those dependent 
upon their employers — this is the burden of the cry. 
To those who study the gleams and glimpses of 
Plague -time in these papers, the worst suffering in 
every time of pestilence was caused by the cessation 
of work and of trade. The master gone, the servants 
had no work and no wages — how were the children to 
be fed ? 

With one little touch of human nature the tract 
concludes. The writer was a scholar ; he is jealous 
concerning his style. "If," he says, " this Declaration 
wants Science, or that Eloquence that might beseem 
me, consider my Trouble, the Absence of my Orators, 
the shutting up of my Libraries, so that I was content 
with a common Secretary." It is Vox Civitatis Lon- 
don that speaks ; her libraries are those of St. Paul's, 
Zion College, Gresham College, Whittington College ; 
the " common Secretary " is the writer. Such is his 
proud humility — a " common Secretary !" 

Now for another twice-told tale. 

The last cross had not been removed from the last 
infected house, the last person dead of the Plague 
had not been buried, before the Great Fire of London 
broke out and purged the plague-stricken city from 
end to end. 

Three great fires had destroyed London before this 
of the year 1666, viz., in 962, in 1087, which swept 
away nearly the whole of the City, and in 12 12, when 
a great part of Southwark and of the City north of 
the bridge was destroyed. 

This fire began early in the morning of Sunday, 



CHARLES THE SECOND 395 

September 2d. It broke out at the house of one Far- 
ryner, a baker in Pudding Lane, Thames Street. All 
the houses in that lane, and, one supposes, in all the 
narrow lanes and courts about this part of the City, 
were of wood, pitched without ; the lane was narrow, 
and the projecting stories on either side nearly met at 
the top. The baker's house was full of faggots and 
brushwood, so that the fire instantly broke out into 
full fury and spread four ways at once. The houses 
stood very thick in this, the most densely populated 
part of the City. In the narrow lanes north and 
south of Thames Street lived those who made their 
living as stevedores, watermen, porters, carriers, and 
so forth ; in Thames Street itself, on either side, were 
warehouses filled with oil, pitch, and tar, wine, brandy, 
and such inflammable things, so that by six o'clock 
on Sunday morning all Fish Street was in flames, and 
the fire spreading so fast that the people barely had 
time to remove their goods. As it drew near to a 
house they hurriedly loaded a cart with the more val- 
uable effects and carried them off to another house 
farther away, and then to another, and yet another. 
Some placed their goods in churches for safety, as if 
the flames would respect a consecrated building. The 
booksellers, for instance, of Paternoster Row carried 
all their books into the crypt of St. Paul's, thinking 
that there, at least, would be a safe place, if any in 
the whole world. Who could look at those strong 
stone pillars with the strong arched roof and suspect 
that the stones would crumble like sand beneath the 
fierce heat which was playing upon them ? All that 
Sunday was spent in moving goods out of houses be- 
fore the flames caught them ; the river was covered 



39 6 



LONDON 



with barges and lighters laden with furniture. Pepys 
watched the fire from Bankside. " We stayed till, it 
being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch 
of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in 
a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long ; it 
made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and 




^ ^D^S^ 
















^-'^trir 1 




&z 



OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE 



CHARLES THE SECOND 397 

all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the 
flames made, and the crackling of houses at their 
ruin." On Monday morning Pepys puts his bags of 
gold and his plate into a cart with all his best things, 
and drove off to Sir William Rider's, at Bethnal Green. 
His friend, Sir VV. Batten, not knowing how to move 
his wine, dug a pit in his garden and put it there. In 
this pit, also, Pepys placed the papers of the Admi- 
ralty. 

On Wednesday he walked into the town over the 
hot ashes. Fenchurch Street, Gracechurch Street, 
Lombard Street, Cheapside, he found in dust. Of 
the Exchange nothing standing of all the statues but 
that of Sir Thomas Gresham — a strange survival. On 
Saturday he went to see the ruins of St. Paul's: "A 
miserable sight ; all the roofs fallen, and the body of 
the Quire fallen into St. Faith's ; Paul's school, also 
Ludgate and Fleet Street." 

The fire was stayed at length by blowing up houses 
at the Temple Church, at Pie Corner, Smithfield 
(where the figure of a boy still stands to commemo- 
rate the fact), at Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and the 
upper part of Bishopsgate Street. It had consumed 
five-sixths of the City, together with a great piece be- 
yond the western gates. It had covered an area of 
436 acres, viz., 387 acres within the walls, and 73 with- 
out ; it had destroyed 132,000 dwelling-houses, St. 
Paul's Cathedral, eighty-nine parish churches, four of 
the City gates, Sion College, the Royal Exchange, the 
old Grey Friars Church, the Chapel of St. Thomas 
of Aeon, and an immense number of great houses, 
schools, prisons, and hospitals. The area covered, 
roughly speaking, an oblong nearly a mile and a half 



398 



LONDON 



in length by half a mile in breadth. The value of 
the property destroyed was estimated at .£10,000,000. 
There is no such fire of any great city on record, un- 
less it is the burning of Rome under Nero. 



mM3 




SION COLLEGE 



Their city being thus destroyed, the citizens lost 
no time, but set to work manfully to rebuild it. The 
rebuilding of London is a subject of some obscurity. 
One thing is quite certain : that as soon as the embers 
were cool enough to enable the people to walk among 
them, they returned, and began to find out the sites 
of their former houses. It is also certain that it took 
more than two years to clear away the tottering walls 
and the ruins. 

It was at first proposed to build again on a new 
plan ; Sir Christopher Wren prepared one plan, and 
Sir John Evelyn another. Both plans were excellent, 
symmetrical and convenient. Had either been adopt- 
ed, the City of London would have been as artificial 
and as regular as a new American town, or the City of 
Turin. Very happily, while the Lord Mayor and al- 



ciiarles the second 399 

dermcn were considering the matter, the people had 
already begun to build. A most fortunate thing it 
was that the City rose again on its old lines, with its 
winding streets and narrow lanes. At first the house- 
less people, 200,000 in number, camped out in Moor- 
fields, just north of the City. Very happily, these 
fields, which had long been a swamp or fen intersected 
by ditches, a place of pasture, kennels, and windmills, 
had been drained by the City in 1606, and were now 
laid out in pleasant walks, a place of resort for sum- 
mer evenings, a wrestling and cudgel playing-ground, 
and a ground for the muster of the militia. Here 
they set up tents and cottages ; here they presently 
began to build two-storied houses of brick. 

As they had no churches, they set up " tabernacles," 
whether on the site of the old churches or in Moor- 
fields does not appear. As they had no Exchange, 
they used Gresham College for the purpose ; the same 
place did duty for the Guildhall ; the Excise Office 
was removed to Southampton Fields, near Bedford 
House ; the General Post-office was taken to Brydges 
Street, Covent Garden; the Custom-house to Mark 
Lane ; Doctors' Commons to Exeter House, Strand. 
The part of the town wanted for the shipping and 
foreign trade was first put up. And thus the town, 
in broken-winged fashion, renewed its old life. 

On September 18th the Houses of Parliament cre- 
ated a Court of Judicature for settling the differences 
which were sure to arise between landlord and ten- 
ants, and between owners of land, as to boundaries 
and other things. The Justices of the Court of King's 
Bench and Common Pleas, with the Barons of the 
Exchequer, were the judges of the Court. So much 



400 LONDON 

satisfaction did they give that the grateful City caused 
their portraits to be placed in Guildhall, where, I be- 
lieve, they may be seen to this day. 

In order to enable the churches, prisons, and public 
buildings to be rebuilt, a duty was laid upon coals. 
This duty was also to enable the City to enlarge the 
streets, take over ground for quays, and other useful 
purposes. Nothing, however, seems to have been 
granted for the rebuilding of private houses. 

The building of the churches took a long time to 
accomplish. The first to be completed was that of 
St. Dunstan's in the East, the tower of which is Sir 
Christopher Wren's ; the body of the church, which 
has since been pulled down, was by another hand. 
That was built two years after the Fire. Six years 
after the Fire another church was finished ; seven 
years after three more ; eight years after three more ; 
ten years after five, and so on, dragging along until 
the last two of those rebuilt — for a great many were 
not put up again — were finished in the year 1697, 
thirty-one years after the Fire. 

Within four years the rebuilding of the City was 
nearly completed. Ten thousand houses were built, a 
great many companies' halls, and nearly twenty church- 
es. One who writes in the year 1690 (Anglia Metropo- 
lis, or, The Present State of London) says, " As if the 
Fire had only purged the City, the buildings are infi- 
nitely more beautiful, more commodious, more solid 
(the three main virtues of all edifices) than before. 
They have made their streets much more large and 
straight, paved on each side with smooth hewn stone, 
and guarded the same with many massy posts for the 
benefit of foot-passengers ; and whereas before they 



CHARLES THE SECOND 



401 



dwelt in low, dark, wooden houses, they now live in 
lofty, lightsome, uniform, and very stately brick build- 
ings." This is great gain. And yet, looking at the 
houses outside Staple Inn and at the old pictures, at 
what loss of picturesqueness was this gain acquired? 
The records are nearly silent as to the way in which 
the people were affected by the Fire. It is certain, 
however, that where the Plague ruined hundreds of 
families, the Fire ruined thousands. Thirteen thou- 
sand houses were burned down ; many of these were 
houses harboring two or three families, for 200,000 




JOHN BUNYAN S MEETING-HOUSE IN ZOAR STREET 



were rendered homeless. Some of them were families 
of the lower working class, the river-side laborers and 
watermen, who would suffer little more than temporary 
inconvenience, and the loss of their humble " sticks." 
26 



402 LONDON 

But many of them were substantial merchants, their 
warehouses filled with wine, oil, stuffs, spices, and all 
kinds of merchandise ; warehouses and contents all 
gone — swept clean away — and with them the whole 
fortune of the trader. And there were the retailers, 
whose stock in trade, now consumed, represented all 
they had in the world. And there were the master- 
workmen, their workshops fitted with such machinery 
and tools as belonged to their craft and the materials 
for their work — -all gone — all destroyed. Where was 
the money found to replace these treasures of import- 
ed goods? Who could refurnish his shop for the 
draper? Who could rebuild and fill his warehouse 
for the merchant ? Who could give back his books 
to the bookseller? No one — the stock was all gone. 

The prisoners for debt, as well as those who were 
imprisoned for crime, regained their freedom when 
the prisons were burned down. Could the debts be 
proved against them when the papers were all de- 
stroyed ? 

The tenant whose rent was in arrears was safe, for 
who could prove that he had not paid ? 

All debts were wiped clean off the slate. There 
were no more mortgages, no more promissory bills to 
meet, no more drafts of honor. Debts as well as 
property were all destroyed together. The money- 
lender and the borrower were destroyed together. 
The schools were closed — for how long? The alms- 
houses were burned down — what became of the poor 
old bedesmen and bedeswomen? The City charities 
were suspended — what became of the poor? The 
houses were destroyed — what became of rents and 
tithes and taxes ? 



CHARLES THE SECOND 



403 



The Fire is out at last ; the rain has quenched the 
last sparks ; the embers have ceased to smoke ; those 
walls which have not fallen totter and hang trembling 
ready to fall. I see men standing about singly ; the 
tears run down their cheeks ; two hundred years ago, 
if we had anything to cry about, we were not ashamed 
to cry without restraint ; they are dressed in broad- 




OLD GROCERS HALL, USED FOR BANK OF ENGLAND 



cloth, the ruffles are of lace, they look like reputable 
citizens. Listen — one draws near another. " Neigh- 
bor," he says, " a fortnight ago, before this stroke, 
whether of God or of Papist, I had a fair shop on this 
spot." "And I also, good friend," said the other, " as 
you know." " My shop," continued the first, " was 
stocked with silks and satins, kid gloves, lace ruffles 
and neckties, shirts, and all that a gentleman or a gen- 
tlewoman can ask for. The stock was worth a thou- 
sand pounds. I turned it over six or seven times a 
year at least. And my profit was four hundred 



404 LONDON 

pounds." " As for me," said the other, " I was in a 
smaller way, as you know. Yet such as it was, my 
fortune was all in it, and out of my takings I could 
call two hundred pounds a year my own." " Now is 
it all gone," said the first. " All gone," the other re- 
peated, fetching a sigh. " And now, neighbor, unless 
the company help, I see nothing for it but we must 
starve." " Must starve," the other repeated. And so 
they separated, and went divers ways, and whether 
they starved or whether they received help, and rose 
from the ashes with new house and newly stocked 
shop, I know not. Says Dryden on the Fire : 

" Those who have homes, when home they do repair 
To a last lodging call their wandering friends : 
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care 
To look how near their own destruction tends. 

" Those who have none sit round where it was 
And with full eyes each wonted room require : 
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place, 
As murdered men walk where they did expire. 

" The most in fields like herded beasts lie down, 
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor : 
And while their babes in sleep their sorrow drown, 
Sad parents watch the remnant of their store." 

I think there must have been a return for a while 
to a primitive state of barter and exchange. Not 
quite, because every man carried out of the Fire such 
money as he had. Pepys, for instance, placed his bags 
of gold in a cart and drove it himself, " in my night 
gown," to a friend at rural Bethnal Green. But there 
could have been very little money in comparison with 
the millions invested in the merchandise destroved. 



CHARLES THE SECOND 407 

The most pressing want was food. The better sort 
had money enough for present needs, the poorer class 
had to be maintained. The corporation set thou- 
sands to work clearing rubbish, carting it way, pulling 
down the shaky walls, and throwing open the streets. 
When the quays were cleared, the business of the 
port was resumed. Then the houses and the shops 
began to rise. The former were built on credit, and 
the latter stocked on credit. Very likely the com- 
panies or the corporation itself became to a large ex- 
tent security, advancing money to the builders and 
making easy terms about rent. Naturally, it was a 
time of enormous activity, every trader making up for 
lost time, and especially such trades as concerned the 
building, furnishing, or fitting of houses — a time of 
good wages and constant work. Indeed, it is stated 
that the prosperity of the West Country cloth-making 
business was never so great as during the years fol- 
lowing the Fire, which had destroyed such a prodigious 
quanity of material. The City in time resumed its 
old aspect ; the ruined thousands had sunk out of 
sight; and nothing could replace the millions that 
had been lost. 

The manners of the City differed little in essentials 
from those of Queen Elizabeth's time. Let us note, 
however, two or three points, still keeping the un- 
speakable court out of sight, and confining ourselves 
as much as possible to the City. Here are a few 
notes which must not be taken as a finished picture of 
the time. 

It was a great time for drinking. Even grave divines 
drank large quantities of wine. Pepys is constantly 
getting " foxed" with drink; on one occasion he is 



408 LONDON 

afraid of reading evening prayers lest the servants 
should discover his condition. Of course they did 
discover it, and went to bed giggling ; but as they 
kept no diary the world never learned it. London 
drank freely. Pepys tells how one lady, dining at 
Sir W. Bullen's, drank at one draught a pint and a 
half of white wine. They all went to church a great 
deal, and had fast days on every occasion of doubt 
and difficulty ; on the first Sunday in the year the 
longest Psalm in the book (I suppose the 119th) was 
given out after the sermon. This took an hour to say 
or sing, and all the while the sexton went about the 
church making a collection. On Valentine's Day the 
married men took each other's wives for valentines. 
Public wrestling matches were held, followed by bouts 
with the cudgels. 

They still carried on the sport of bull and bear bait- 
ing, and on one occasion they baited a savage horse 
to death. That is, they attempted it, but he drove off 
all the dogs, and the people insisting on his death, 
they stabbed him to death. The King issued two 
patents for theatres, one to Henry Killigrew, at Drury 
Lane, whose company called themselves The King's 
Servants ; the other to Sir William Davenant, of Dorset 
Gardens, whose company was The Duke's Servants. 
There were still some notable superstitions left. These 
are illustrated by the remedies advertised for the plague 
and other diseases. A spider, for instance, placed in 
a nutshell and wrapped in silk will cure ague. They 
believed in the malignant influence of the planets. 
One evening at a dancing house half a dozen boys 
and girls were taken suddenly ill. Probably they had 
swallowed some poisonous stuff. They were sup- 



CHARLES THE SECOND 409 

posed to be planet-struck. And, of course, they be- 
lieved in astrology and in chiromancy, the latter of 
which has again come into fashion. 

Saturday was the day of duns. Creditors then went 
about collecting their money. In the autumn the 
merchants rode out into the country and looked after 
their country customers. 

The social fabric of the time cannot be understood 
without remembering that certain nominal distinc- 
tions of our generation were then real things, and 
gave a man consideration. Thus, there were no peers 
left living in the City. But there were a few baro- 
nets and many knights. After them in order came 
esquires, gentlemen, and commoners. Those were 
entitled to the title of esquire who were gentlemen 
of good estate, not otherwise dignified, counsellors-at- 
law, physicians and holders of the King's commission. 
Everybody remembers Pepys's delight at being for the 
first time, then newly made Secretary to the Admiral- 
ty, addressed as esquire, and his irrepressible pride at 
being followed into church by a page. A younger 
brother could call himself a gentleman, and this, I 
take it, whether he was in trade or not. About this 
time, however, younger sons began leaving off going 
to the City and embarking in trade, and that separa- 
tion of the aristocracy from the trade of the country, 
which made the former a distinct caste and has lasted 
almost until the present day, first began. It is now, 
however, so far as one can perceive the signs of the 
times, fast disappearing. The younger son, in fact, 
began to enter the army, the navy, or the Church. 
From the middle of the seventeenth century till the 
battle of Waterloo, war in Europe was almost con- 



4IO LONDON 

tinuous. A gentleman could offer his sword any- 
where and was accepted. There were English gen- 
tlemen in the service of Austria, Russia, Sweden — 
even in that of France or Spain. Unfortunately, 
however, in this country we generally had need of all 
the gentlemen we could find to command our own 
armies. The title of gentleman was also conceded to 
attorneys, notaries, proctors, and other lesser degrees 
of the law ; merchants, surgeons, tradesmen, authors, 
artists, architects, and the like, had then, and have 
now, no rank of any kind in consideration of their 
employments. 

Tea, which at the Restoration was quite beyond 
the means of private persons, became rapidly cheaper 
and in daily use among the better class in London, 
though not in the country. Thus, in Congreve's" Way 
of the World," Mrs. Millamant claims to be " Sole 
Empress of my tea-table." Her lover readily con- 
sents to her drinking tea if she agrees to a stipulation 
which shows that the love of tea was as yet more 
fashionable than real, since it could be combined with 
that of strong drinks. He says that he must banish 
from her table " foreign forces, auxiliaries to the tea- 
table, such as orange brandy, aniseed, cinnamon, cit- 
ron, and Barbadoes water, together with ratafia and 
the most noble spirit of clary." 

The favorite places of resort in the City were the 
galleries of the Royal Exchange, filled with shops for 
the sale of gloves, ribbons, laces, fans, scent, and such 
things. The shops were kept by young women who, 
like the modern bar-maid, added the attraction of a 
pretty face to the beauty of their wares. The piazza 
of Covent Garden was another favorite place, but this, 



CHARLES THE SECOND 



411 




Wmk 

old st. Paul's, with the porch of inigo jones 

with Spring Gardens, Vauxhall, was outside the City. 
The old desecration of Paul's was to a great extent 
stopped by the erection of the West Porch, designed 
for those who met here for purposes of business. 

Coffee-houses were first set up at this time, and at 
once became indispensable to the citizens, who before 
had had no other place of evening resort than the tav- 
ern. The City houses were " Dick's " and the " Rain- 
bow," in Fleet Street; "Tom's," of Birchin Lane (not 
to speak of the more classic " Tom's," of Covent Gar- 
den). Nearly all the old inns of the City have now 



412 LONDON 

been destroyed. Fifty years ago many were still 
standing, with their galleries and their open courts. 
Such were the " Bell," of Warwick Lane ; the " Belle 
Sauvage," of LudgateHill; the "Blossom," Laurence 
Lane ; the " Black Lion," Whitefriars Street ; the 
" Four Swans," Bishopsgate Street ; the " Saracen's 
Head," Friday Street, and many others. 

" It is, I suppose, pretty clear that the songs col- 
lected by Tom d'Urfey are a fair representation of 
the delectable and edifying ditties sung in taverns, and 
when the society was "mixed." It would be easy to 
preach against the wickedness of the times which could 
permit the singing of such songs, but in reality they 
are no worse than the songs of the preceding genera- 
tion, to which, indeed, many of them belong. And, 
besides, it does not appear that the better sort of peo- 
ple regaled themselves with this kind of song at all, 
and even in this collection there are a great many 
which are really beautiful. The following pretty lines 
are taken almost at random from one of the volumes 
of the Pills to Purge MciancJwly. They are called a 
" Description of Chloris :" 

" Have you e'er seen the morning Sun 
From fair Aurora's bosom run ? 
Or have you seen on Flora's bed 
The essences of white and red ? 
Then you may boast, for you have seen 
My fairer Chloris, Beauty's Queen. 

" Have you e'er pleas'd your skilful ears 
With the sweet music of the Spheres ? 
Have you e'er heard the Syrens sing, 
Or Orpheus play to Hell's black King? 
If so, be happy and rejoyce, 
For thou hast heard my Chloris' Voice. 



CHARLES THE SECOND 413 

" Have you e'er tasted what the Bee 
Steals from each fragrant flower or tree ? 
Or did you ever taste that meat 
Which poets say the Gods did eat? 
O then I will no longer doubt 
But you have found my Chloris out.'' 

Many of the poems are patriotic battle-pieces ; some 
present the shepherd in the usual fashion as consumed 
by the ardor of his love, being wishing and pining, 
sighing and weeping. That seeming extravagance of 
passion — that talk of flames and darts — was not en- 
tirely conventional : 

" How charming Phillis is, how fair ! 
O that she were as willing 
To ease my wounded heart of care, 
And make her eyes less killing!" 

It was not only exaggeration. 'I am quite certain that 
men and women were far less self- governed formerly 
than now : when, for instance, they were in love, they 
were much more in love than now. The passion pos- 
sessed them and transported them and inflamed them. 
Their pangs of jealousy tore them to pieces ; they must 
get their mistress or they will go mad. Nay, it is only 
of late — say during the last hundred years — that we 
have learned to restrain passions of any kind. Love, 
jealousy, envy, hatred, were far fiercer emotions under 
the Second Charles — nay, even under the Second 
George — than they are with us. Anger was far more 
common. It does not seem as if men and women, 
especially of the lower classes, ever attempted in the 
least to restrain their passions. To be sure they could 
at once have it out in a fight — a thing which excuses 



414 LONDON 

wrath. To inquire into the causes of the universal 
softening of manners would take us too far. But we 
may note as a certain fact that passions are more re- 
strained and not so overwhelming: that love is milder, 
wrath more governed, and that manners are softened 
for us. 

One must not, again, charge the City at this time 
with being more than commonly pestered by rogues. 
The revelations of the Elizabethan moralists, and the 
glimpses we get of mediaeval rogues, forbid this accusa- 
tion. At the same time there was a good standing 
mass of solid wickedness. Contemporary literature 
proves this, if any proof were wanted, abundantly. 
There is a work of some literary value called the Life 
of Meriton Latroon, in which is set forth an immense 
quantity of rogueries. Among other things the writer 
shows the tricks of trade, placing his characters in 
many kinds of shops, so as to give his experiences in 
each. We are thus enabled to perceive that there 
were sharpers and cheats in respectable-looking shops 
then, as now. And there seems no reason to believe 
that the cheats were in greater proportion to the hon- 
est men than they are now. Besides the tricks of the 
masters, the honest Meriton Latroon shows us the 
ways of the London prentice, which were highly prom- 
ising for the future of the City. He robbed his mas- 
ter as much as he dared : he robbed him of money ; 
he robbed him of stuffs and goods ; he ruined the 
maids ; he belonged to a club which met on Saturday 
nights, when the master was at his country-box, and 
exchanged, for the common good, the robberies of the 
week. After this they feasted and drank with young 
Bona Robas, who stole from them the money they had 



CHARLES THE SECOND 415 

stolen from their shops. It is a beautiful picture, and 
would by some moralists be set down to the evil exam- 
ple of King Charles, who is generally held responsible 
for the whole of the wickedness of the people during 
his reign. But these prentices knew nothing of the 
court, and the thing had been going on all through 
the Protectorate, and, for that matter, I dare say as 
far back as the original institution of apprenticeship. 
One would fain hope that not all the City apprentices 
belonged to this club. Otherwise, one thinks that 
the burning of London ought to have been the end 
of London. 

The worst vice of the age seems to have been gam- 
bling, which was as prevalent in the City as at the 
court ; that is to say, one does not accuse sober mer- 
chants of gambling, but in every tavern there were 
cards and dice, and they were in use all day long. Now, 
wherever there is gambling there are thieves, sharpers, 
and cheats by profession, and in every age these gentry 
enjoy their special names, whether of opprobrium or 
of endearment. They were then called Huffs, Rooks, 
Pads, Pimpinios, Philo Puttonists, Ruffins, Shabba- 
roons, Rufflers, and other endearing terms — not that 
the number of the names proves the extent of the 
evil. Whatever they were called, the whole object of 
their lives — their only way of living — was to trick, ex- 
tort, or coax money out of flats. Very often they 
were gentlemen by birth, younger sons of good fam- 
ilies, who scorned any honest way of making their 
living. By their good manners, fashionable appear- 
ance, pleasing address, and known connections they 
often succeeded in getting hold of unsuspecting gen- 
tlemen from the country. It is the old, old story. 



416 LONDON 

Captain Hawk is always on the lookout for Master 
Pigeon, and too often catches him. The story that 
Thackeray has told belongs not to one period, but 
to all. Of course there was the lower class of rogues: 
the sturdy beggar, the man who cannot work be- 
cause he has in his blood the taint of whole gen- 
erations of idleness ; the nomad, who would die unless 
he were always roving about the country ; the outcast, 
who delights in pitting his wits against the law. A 
few of these I have chosen from the long lists. They 
are as follows : 

The " Ruffler," who pretended to be an old soldier 
of Naseby or Marston Moor. 

The " Angler," who carried a stick with a hook at 
the end of it, and found it useful when the window 
was left open. 

The " Wild Rogue," used for boys and girls, chil- 
dren of thieves, who made a good living for their par- 
ents by hanging about the doors of crowded churches, 
and cutting off gold buttons from the coats of the 
merchants. 

The " Clapperdozen," a woman who begged about 
the streets with stolen children. 

The "Abram Man," a sham madman. 

The " Whip Jack," a counterfeit sailor who pretend- 
ed to be shipwrecked. 

The " Mumpus," who pretended to be a decayed 
merchant or a sequestered clergyman. 

The " Dommerer," who shammed dumb. 

Let us turn from general statements to the con- 
sideration of a single family. That of Samuel Pepys 
might be taken as an example, and his Journal is by no 
means well-trodden and familiar ground. In fact, he 



, CHARLES THE SECOND 417 

is generally read in bits, for half an hour's amusement. 
Yet it is better to take a case not before the public at 
all. Besides, even a minute diary such as that of 
Pepys, kept day by day, leaves, when you come to 
construct the daily life out of it, great gaps here and 
there. Less literary documents may sometimes yield 
richer results. Even the most careful diarist scorns to 
speak of details. For them we must look into the 
humble papers of the household. For instance, I have 
before me a bundle of documents on which I lighted 
by accident, containing the household accounts of a 
respectable family for the years 1677-1679, and I pro- 
pose by means of these accounts to reproduce the 
household daily life of a bourgeois well-to-do family 
of the time. 

This family consisted of the master, the mistress, and 
" Mr. Arthur," who was probably the master's brother. 
The two former were at this time a young married 
couple, whose joys and anxieties are presently increased 
by the arrival of a baby. Their residence is a short 
distance from London, and their way of life may be 
taken to illustrate that of the general run of London 
citizens. The occupation of the master is not stated, 
but he appears to be a man following no profession or 
trade: perhaps a gentleman with a small estate. They 
seem to have kept no horses, so that their means were 
certainly narrow. Their nearest market -town was 
Hertford, whither they went by coach (fare one shil- 
ling) to buy what they wanted. Their house-keeping 
was conducted with an eye to economy, yet there is 
no stint, and occasionally there occurs an entry — 
quite inexplicable — of wild extravagance. They lived 
in the country, about fifteen miles from London, and 
27 



418 LONDON 

presumably had a garden, yet they did not grow 
enough vegetables, herbs, and fruit for their own con- 
sumption. The household consisted, besides the fam- 
ily and the nurse, of a cook, two maids, and a gardener, 
or man of all work. The accounts are partly kept by 
the mistress and partly by a servant — perhaps a house- 
keeper. Remembering that Pepys consented to re- 
ceive his sister "Pall" into his house only on the foot- 
ing of a servant, the keeper of the accounts may very 
well have been a poor relation. 

The rent of the house was £26 a year. It contained 
two sitting-rooms and four bedrooms, with a kitchen. 
The parlor, or best sitting-room, was hung with five 
pieces of fine tapestry ; the other sitting-room with 
gray linsey-woolsey and gilt leather; the bedrooms 
had hangings of striped cloth. Curtains of green cloth 
with a green carpet decorated the parlor ; the other 
rooms had green, say, or "sad color" striped curtains. 
The best bedroom contained a magnificent "wrought" 
— i.e., carved — bedstead with a canopy, curtains, a val- 
ance, and chairs all of the same material. There were 
three other bedrooms, one for Mr. Arthur, one for the 
nurse and the baby, unless they slept at the foot of the 
big bed, and one for the maids. The gardener slept 
out of the house. The furniture of the parlor consist- 
ed of one central table — the dining-table — a table 
with a drawer, a cupboard, a clock case, a leather chair, 
a plush chair, six green cloth chairs, and two green 
stools. The carpet and curtains have been already 
mentioned ; there were no pictures, no cabinets, no 
book-shelves, no mirrors, no sofas. The other room 
was more simply furnished with a Spanish table, a 
plain table, and a few chairs. Two of the bedrooms 



CHARLES THE SECOND 419 

had looking-glasses, and there was a very generous 
provision of feather-beds, bolsters, pillows, and blank- 
ets, which speaks of comfort for the night. 

The inventory of the kitchen furniture is, unfortu- 
nately, incomplete. There is no mention at all made 
of any china-ware. Yet porcelain was by this time in 
common use. It was made at Bow and at Chelsea. 
In middle-class houses the master and mistress used 
it at table, while servants and children still had pewter 
or even wooden platters. The inventory speaks of 
porringers, doubtless of wood, of pewter candlesticks 
— there are no brass candlesticks — of a three -pint 
pewter pot, of a great and little bowl — for possets and 
hot spiced ale — and of wooden platters. Nothing is 
said of silver ; there are no silver cups — in the century 
before this no respectable householder was without 
one silver mazer at least ; there are no silver candle- 
sticks ; there is no mention of forks. Now the two- 
pronged fork of steel was made in Sheffield certainly 
in the middle of the century. It would be curious if 
the ordinary household still kept up the old fashion of 
eating without forks so late as 1677. 

Such was the equipment of the house> one sitting- 
room, and one bedroom handsomely, the rest plainly, 
furnished. 

The first thing which strikes one in the accounts is 
the enormous consumption of beer. The household 
drank two kilderkins, or thirty- six gallons, of beer 
every week ! One hundred and forty-four quarts a 
week ! Twenty-one quarts a day ! It means nearly 
three quarts a head. This seems impossible. There 
must have been some external assistance. Perhaps 
the master had some kind of farm, or employed other 



420 LONDON 

servants. But it is not really impossible. We must 
remember that there was no tea, that people would 
not drink water if they could get anything else, and 
that small beer was the national beverage, taken with 
every meal, and between meals, and that the allowance 
was practically a discretion. It was certainly quite pos- 
sible, and even common, for a man to drink three 
quarts a day. A hundred years later Benjamin Frank- 
lin describes the daily beer- drinking in a London 
printing-house. The men took a pint before break- 
fast, a pint with breakfast, a pint between breakfast 
and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint at six, and a pint 
when work was knocked off. This makes three quarts, 
without counting any beer that might be taken in the 
evening. In the well-known and often-quoted account 
of Mr. Hastings (Hutchin's History of .Dorsetshire), 
who lived over a hundred years, it is recorded of him 
that he would take his glass or two of wine or strong 
ale at dinner, but that he always had beside him his 
great "tun-glass" filled with small beer, which he 
stirred with rosemary. But, even if the men drank 
three quarts a day, the women could not. 

In addition to the small beer, which cost threepence 
a gallon, there are continual entries of ale at twopence 
a quart. This was bought at the tavern. There were 
many kinds of ale, as cock ale, college ale, worm- 
wood ale, sage ale, and scurvy-grass ale, some of them 
medicated, to be taken at certain seasons of the year. 
There was also wine, but not much. Occasionally 
they bought a cask — a tierce of forty-two gallons — 
and bottled it at home. The kind of wine is not 
stated. Sometimes they send out to the nearest 
tavern for a bottle, and it cost a shilling. 



CHARLES THE SECOND 42 r 

The accounts seem to set down everything wanted 
for the conduct of a house ; every week, however, there 
is an unexplained item, called " cook's bill." This, I 
think, is the separate account of the servants' table. 
The " cook's bill " amounts every week to a good sum, 
a little above or a little below a pound. Perhaps it 
contained the wages as well as the board. The amount 
of food entered certainly does not seem enough for 
the servants as well as the family. 

During the winter they bought no fresh beef at all. 
In November they bought great pieces, thirty, forty, 
even seventy pounds at a time. This was for the 
pickling-tub. Boiled beef played a great part in the 
winter's dinners. If they drank enormous quantities 
of beer they managed with very little bread. I find 
that, taking ten consecutive weeks, they spent no more 
than eight shillings upon bread. The price of wheat 
was then subject to very great variations. For ex- 
ample : 

In the year 1675 it was ^3 4s. 2>d. the quarter. 

1676 " 1 18 o 

1677 " 220 

1678 " 2 19 o 

In other words, it was dearer in 1678 than it is in 
1890, and that when the purchasing power of money 
was four times what it is now. Now it may be reck- 
oned that in a house where there are children the 
average consumption of bread is at this day ten 
pounds weight a head. In this household of seven 
the average consumption was no more than eight 
pounds altogether. Setting aside the servants, the 
family had no more than two pounds of bread apiece 



422 LONDON 

every week, or four and a half ounces a day, which is 
one slice not too thick. Oat cake, however, they used 
in good quantity, so that the bread would be con- 
sidered as a luxury. 

The old vice of the English in eating vast quantities 
of meat to very little bread or vegetable could no 
longer be a reproach to them. By this time there was 
abundance of vegetables of every kind. We are es- 
pecially told that in the serving of the boiled beef 
great quantities of vegetables, carrots, parsnips, cauli- 
flowers, cabbage, spinach, beans, peas, etc., were served 
with it, and so also with other meat. There is no 
mention of potatoes, though one had always thought 
that they were firmly established in the country by 
this time. Their own garden was not able to furnish 
them with enough fruit or vegetables, which they 
have to buy constantly. They also buy nosegays in 
the summer. 

The prices of things in the time of Charles the 
Second, may be found interesting. In considering 
them, remember, as stated above, that the general pur- 
chasing power of money was then four times that of 
the present time. A leg of mutton generally costs two- 
and-sixpence; a shoulder, two shillings; a hand of pork, 
eighteenpence ; " a cheese " — they had one every week, 
but it is not stated how much it weighed — varies from 
one-and-twopence to one-and-eightpence. Butter is 
eight or nine pence a pound ; they used about a pound 
a week. Sugar is sixpence a pound. They bought their 
flour by sixpennyworths, and their coals in small 
quantities for eighteenpence each week during the 
winter, so that their fires must have been principally 
kept going with wood. Once a month the washer- 



CHARLES THE SECOND 423 

woman is called in, and sheets are washed ; therefore, 
the washing was all done at home. Raisins and cur- 
rants at twopence a pound, eggs, nutmegs, ginger, 
mace, rice, suet, etc., proclaim the pudding. It was 
made in fifty different ways, but the ingredients were 
always the same, and in this family they evidently had 
pudding every day. Cakes, also, they had, and pies, 
both fruit pies and meat pies, and open tarts. These 
were all sent to the bake-house to be baked at one 
penny each, so that the kitchen contained no oven. 
Candles were fivepence a pound, but the entries of 
candles are so irregular that one suspects the accounts 
to be imperfect. Herrings were bought nearly every 
week, and sometimes ling — "a pole of ling." Bacon 
was sevenpence a pound. Rice was also sevenpence a 
pound. Oranges came in about December ; cherries 
in their season were twopence a pound ; gooseberries, 
fourpence, sold, I suppose, by the measure ; pease, six- 
pence a peck ; beans, fourpence a quart ; asparagus 
(" sparragrasse ") was in April excessively dear — we 
find them giving six shillings and twopence, a most 
extravagant expenditure for a single dish ; two weeks 
later it has gone down to eighteenpence for two hun- 
dred. But how could so careful a housewife spend six 
and twopence on a single dish? A "sallet" — that is, a 
lettuce — is one penny. Once in six weeks or so we find 
mention of "earbs" — that is, thyme, sage, rosemary, 
etc. — for twopence. " Cowcumbers" are a penny apiece, 
and a favorite vegetable. Radishes, carrots, turnips, 
French beans are also bought. In the spring cream- 
cheese appears. Sweet brier is bought every year, 
one knows not for what, and roses by the bushel, evi- 
dently for rose-water. This is the only allusion to the 



424 LONDON 

still-room, which undoubtedly formed part of the 
menage. Nothing is said of preserved fruits, home- 
made wines, distilled waters, or pickles, which then 
formed a great part of house-keeping. They pickled 
everything : walnuts, gherkins, asparagus, peaches, 
cauliflowers, plums, nectarines, onions, lemons, bar- 
berries, mushrooms, nasturtium buds, lime-tree buds, 
oysters, samphire, elder roots. They distilled rose- 
buds and rose-leaves, lavender, walnut -water, and 
cherry-water. They always had plague-water handy, 
hysterical-water, and other sovereign remedies. They 
"jarred" cherries, quinces, hops, apricots, damsons, 
and peaches. They made syrups in many pleasing 
varieties. They knew how to keep green pease, green 
gooseberries, asparagus, and damsons till Christmas. 
They made wine out of all the fruits in their season ; 
the art still survives, though the club-man of the town 
turns up his nose at the delicate cowslip, the robust 
ginger, and the dainty raspberry — a dessert wine. 
They potted everything, from pigeon to venison. 
Nothing is said of these things in the account-books. 
But the large quantity of vinegar bought every week 
shows the activity of the pickling department. Only 
once is there any appearance of spirits. It is when a 
bottle of brandy is bought, at one shilling and two- 
pence. Perhaps that was used to fortify the raspberry 
and the currant wines. Very little milk is bought. 
Sometimes for many months there is no mention of 
milk. This may have been because their own dairy 
supplied them. Perhaps, however, milk was only oc- 
casionally used in the house. The food of very young 
children, infants after they were weaned, was not then 
milk but pap, which I suppose to have been some 



CHARLES THE SECOND 425 

compound of flour and sugar. There is no mention in 
the accounts at all of tea, coffee, or chocolate. Tea 
was already a fashionable drink, but at this time it 
was sixty shillings a pound — a price which placed it 
quite beyond the reach of the ordinary household. 
Coffee was much cheaper; at the coffee-houses it was 
sold at a penny a cup, but it had not yet got into 
private houses. 

Turning to other things besides food. Schooling 
" for E. J." was twopence a week. His shoes were one 
shilling and ninepence the pair. The cobbler who 
made them was Goodman Archer ; Goody Archer was 
his wife. A letter cost twopence or fourpence ; every- 
thing bought or ordered was brought by the carrier, 
which greatly increased the expense ; a lady's gloves 
cost two shillings a pair; her silk stockings, ten shillings, 
and ordinary stockings, six shillings a pair; her shoes, 
three shillings ; her mask, one shilling ; her pattens for 
muddy weather were two shillings a pair; her knitting- 
needles cost a penny apiece ; her steel bodkin, two- 
pence; her needles, eightpence the half-hundred; her 
pins, ninepence a thousand ; her ribbons, threepence a 
yard. As for the little things required for the house, 
they were far dearer than now, considering especially 
the value of money. For instance, a mop cost a shil- 
ling ; a pitcher, fivepence; glasses, one shilling and 
eightpence each ; an earthenware pan, fourpence ; a 
broom, sixpence ; a mustard-pot, one shilling and six- 
pence; a padlock, tenpence ; a mouse-trap, tenpence ; 
eleven shillings were given for a pair of candlesticks, 
probably of brass. Holland was two shillings a yard ; 
a " newsbook " cost a penny. On one occasion — only 
once — it is recorded that the family bought a book. 



426 LONDON 

Only one, and then it was so expensive that they 
could never afford to buy another. This is the entry : 
" Paid a gentleman for a book, ,£3 10s. od." What 
book, one asks in wonder, could be worth seventy 
shillings in the year 1678 — that is, about £15 of 
present money — to a man who was neither a scholar 
nor a collector? 

The servants were up and took their breakfast at 
six in the winter and at five in the summer. The 
famify breakfasted at eight. They had, for the most 
part, cold meat and beer with oat-cake. Pepys tells 
us of a breakfast of cold turkey-pie and goose — imag- 
ine a poor, weak creature of this generation making a 
breakfast of turkey-pie and goose, or of goose alone, 
with small beer ! At another time he had bread and 
butter, sweetmeats, and strong drinks. And on an- 
other occasion he sat down to a table spread with 
oysters, anchovies, and neats' tongues, with wine " of 
all sort." 

At two o'clock dinner was served. If it was boiled- 
beef day, the broth was served in porringers, bread or 
oat-cake being crumbled into it with herbs. When it 
was not boiled-beef day, they had fresh meat or poul- 
try (the latter only seldom), and, in season, what are 
called in the accounts " pateridges " — it really mat- 
ters little how a bird is spelled, provided it is well 
cooked and ready to be eaten. The invariable rule 
of the house was to have two joints a week, mutton, 
veal, pork, or poultry. This provided four dinners, or 
perhaps five. The other two or three dinners were 
consecrated to boiled beef. Calf's head and bacon 
was (deservedly) a favorite dish ; they did not disdain 
tripe ; black puddings were regarded with affection ; 



CHARLES THE SECOND 427 

a hog's cheek was reckoned a toothsome kickshaw ; 
anchovies, prawns, and lobsters are also mentioned 
with commendation. On most days they had a pud- 
ding — the good old English pudding, boiled or baked, 
with raisins and " currance " in it, flour, eggs, butter, 
sugar, nutmeg, mace, ginger, suet, and sometimes 
milk — a famous pudding of which no one was ever 
tired. 

The menu of a dinner where there was company is 
preserved in Pepys. Everything was served at once. 
They had marrow -bones, a leg of mutton, three pul- 
lets, and a dozen larks in one dish, a tart, a neat's 
tongue, anchovies, and a dish of prawns, and cheese. 
This was for thirteen persons. 

The dishes were served in pewter, as they are still 
for the students in the hall of Lincoln's Inn. The 
supper, of which very little is said, was like the break- 
fast, but not quite so solid. Cheese played a large 
part in the supper, and in summer " a sallet " — cost, 
one penny — or a dish of " redishes " helped out the 
cold meat. After supper a cool tankard of ale — not 
small beer — stood within the master's reach while he 
took his pipe of tobacco. In the winter there was a 
posset or a toasted crab in the jug. 

One is sorry to part with this interesting family, 
but, unfortunately, further information is lacking ; I 
could give the inventory of the master's linen and 
that of his wife, but these details want general inter- 
est. So they disappear, the master, the mistress, Mr. 
Arthur, and the baby. Let us hope that they all en- 
joyed a long life and prospered exceedingly. After 
pondering so long over their account-books, one seems 
to know them so well. They have become personal 



428 LONDON 

friends. They sit on the green cloth chairs in the 
room with the green carpet and the green curtains 
and the fine tapestry. The chairs are high and straight 
in the back. Madam has her knitting in her lap. 
The master and Mr. Arthur sit on opposite sides of 
the fire, their heads adorned with beautiful flowing 
perriwigs of brown hair, their own color, which they 
have curled every week at an expense of twopence. 
They are sipping hot spiced ale and talking of last 
Sunday morning's sermon. They are grave and re- 
sponsible people, rather fat in the cheeks because they 
take so little exercise and so much beer. In the win- 
dow stands a row of books. Among them was Jere- 
my Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, Herrick's Hcs- 
perides, Baxter's Saints Rest, Braithwaite's Arcadian 
Princess, Milton's Paradise Lost, the first edition in 
ten books; a Book of Husbandry, a Prophetical Al- 
manack — that of Montelion — and I suppose, if we 
only knew it, the book for which they paid the " gen- 
tleman " £$ \Os. — was it a Bible, illustrated ? It is only 
seventeen years since the commonwealth ; there are 
Puritans still ; their talk chiefly turns on godly mat- 
ters ; the clamor and the scandal of the Court hardly 
so much as reaches their ears. The clouds roll over ; 
they are gone. Oh, world of change and fleeting 
shadows ! Whither do they go, the flying shadows, 
the ghosts, the groups and pictures of the men and 
women that flit before our eyes when we raise the 
wizard's wand and conjure up the spirits of the past? 



IX 

GEORGE THE SECOND 

FROM the accession of the First to the death of 
the Fourth George very little change took place 
in the outward appearance or the customs of London 
and its people. Not that these kings could have had 
anything to do with the manners or the changes of 
the City. The first two Georges were Germans who 
understood not their chief town, and had neither love 
nor fear for the citizens, such as possessed the Plan- 
tagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts. There was 
little change, because the forces that produce change 
were working slowly. Ideas, for instance, are always 
changing, but the English people are slow to catch 
the new ideas. They were born in this country, but 
they were developed in France, and they produced 
the French Revolution. For this they were sup- 
pressed in England, only to grow and spread more 
rapidly underground, and to produce changes of a 
more stable kind than the effervescence of the First 
Republic. 

There was little communication between town and 
town or between town and country. The rustic never 
left his native village unless he enlisted. Then he 



430 LONDON 

never returned. The mechanic lived out his life over 
his work on the spot where he was born and where he 
was brought up. The London shopkeeper never 
went farther afield than Hampstead, and generally 
found sufficient change of air at Bagnigge Wells or 
in Moorfields. If wealth and trade increased, which 
they did by leaps and bounds, it was still on the old 
lines : the City jealous of its rights, the masters keep- 
ing the wealth for themselves, and the men remaining 
in silence and submission. 

One important change may, however, be noted. 
The City had by this time ceased altogether to attract 
the younger sons of the country gentry ; the old con- 
nection, therefore, between London and the counties 
was severed. The chief reason was that the continual 
wars of the century found employment and a career 
for all the younger sons in the services, and that the 
value of land went up enormously. Trade was no 
longer recruited from the better sort, class distinctions 
were deepened and more sharply defined even among 
the middle class : a barrister looked down upon a 
merchant, and would not shake hands with an attor- 
ney, while a simple clergyman would not associate 
with a man in business. Sydney Smith, for instance, 
refused to stay a night at a country-house because its 
owner was a banker and a tradesman. The real ex- 
tent of the contempt with which trade was regarded, 
and the width of the breach between the court and 
the City, was illustrated when the corporation enter- 
tained the Queen on her accession at Guildhall, when 
the Lord Mayor and the corporation, the givers of 
the feast, were actually set down at a lower table sep- 
arate from the Queen their guest ! Think of that 



GEORGE THE SECOND 43 1 

other great dinner chronicled above, where the mayor 
entertained four kings and played cards with them af- 
ter dinner ! 

In the picture of London just before the present 
age we will confine ourselves as much as possible to 
the life of the bourgeois. For the court, for the life 
of the aristocracy, the statesmen, the poets, the schol- 
ars, the artists — they are sufficiently written about 
elsewhere. Here we will keep as much as we can to 
the great mass of the London citizens who know 
nothing of court and noble, but are sober, hard-work- 
ing, honest folk, their chief care being to pay their 
way, avoid bankruptcy, and amass a certain sum of 
money before they die ; their chief subject of admira- 
tion being the man who leaves behind him a great 
fortune made in trade ; their chief pleasures being 
those of the table. 

First, for the extent of the City. 

London in 1750 was spreading, but not yet rapidly. 
East and west it spread, not north and south. East- 
ward the City had thrown out a long arm by the river- 
side. St. Katherine's Precinct was crowded ; streets, 
two or three deep, stretched along the river -bank as 
far as Limehouse, but no farther. These were inhab- 
ited by the people who made their living on the river. 
Immediately north of these streets stretched a great 
expanse of market- gardens and fields. Whitechapel 
was already a crowded suburb, filled with working- 
men. This was one of the quarters where the Lon- 
don mob was born and bred, and free from interfer- 
ence of clergy or rich folk. Clerkenwell, with the 
parts about Smithfield, was another district dear to 
thieves, pickpockets, and rowdies. Within its boun- 



432 



LONDON 



. : 










HOUSES IN ST. KATHEKINE's, FULLED DOWN IN 1827 



daries the City was well and carefully ordered. Un- 
fortunately, this order did not extend beyond the 
walls. Outside there were no companies, no small 
parishes, no rich merchants, no charities, schools, or 
endowments, and practically it was without churches. 
On the north side, Moorfields still remained an open 
space ; beyond lay Hoxton Fields, White Conduit 
Fields, Lamb's Conduit Fields, and Marylebone Fields. 
The suburb of Bloomsbury was beginning. A crowd- 
ed suburb had sprung up north of the Strand. West- 
minster was a great city by itself. Southwark, now a 
borough with half a million people, as great as Liver- 
pool, occupied then a little strip of marshy land not 
half a mile broad at its widest. East and west, to 
Lambeth on the one side and to Redriff on the other, 



GEORGE THE SECOND 433 

was a narrow strip of river-side, dotted with houses 
and hamlets. 

The walls of the City were never formally pulled 
down. They disappeared bit by bit. Houses were 
built close to them and upon them : they were cov- 
ered up. Excavations constantly bring to light some 
of the foundations. When a church-yard was placed 
against the wall, as at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and at 
St. Alphege, London Wall, some portions were al- 
lowed to remain. The course of the wall is perfectly 
well known, and has often been mapped. It is strange, 
however, that the corporation should have been so 
careless as to make no attempt at all to preserve some 
portions of this most interesting monument. 

The gates still stood, and were closed at sunset, 
until the year 1760. Then they were all pulled down, 
and the materials sold. Temple Bar, which was never 
a City gate, properly speaking, remained until the 
other day. The gates were, I suppose, an obstruction 
to traffic, yet one regrets their disappearance. They 
were not old, but they had a character of their own, 
and they preserved the memory of ancient sites. I 
wish they could have been preserved to this day. A 
statue of Queen Elizabeth, which formerly stood on 
the west front of Lud Gate, is, I believe, the only part 
of a City gate not destroyed. It is now placed on 
the south wall of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, where 
thousands pass by every day, regardless of this monu- 
ment of London before the fire ! 

I have found, in a pamphlet written (1754) to advo- 
cate certain improvements in the City, glimpses of 
things too petty for the dignity of history, yet not 
without interest to one who wishes to reconstruct the 
28 



434 LONDON 

life of the time. For instance, the streets were not 
cleaned, except in certain thoroughfares ; at the back 
of the Royal Exchange, for instance, was a scandalous 
accumulation of filth suffered to remain, and the pos- 
terns of the City gates were equally neglected and 
abused. The rubbish shot into the streets was not 
cleared away ; think of the streets all discharging the 
duty of the dust-bin ! Cellar doors and windows were 
left open carelessly; stone steps projected from the 
houses far across the foot-path. Where pavement had 
been laid down it was suffered to become broken and 
ruinous, and so left. Houses that had fallen down or 
been burned down were left unbuilt, an ugly hole in 
the line of the street. Sheds for shops were placed 
against the walls of churches, as at St. Antholin's, 
Budge Row, and at St. Ethelburga's, where they still 
remain, transformed into houses. Sheds for shops 
have been built out in the street before the houses in 
certain places. Houses rebuilt are pushed forward 
into the street. Live bullocks driven through the 
streets are a constant danger ; mad dogs are another 
danger — why is there no tax on dogs? Beggars and 
vagrants swarm in every street. The common people 
practise habitually a profaneness of speech which is 
shocking. These are some of the things complained 
of by my pamphleteer. He next advocates certain 
improvements. He would establish a public Mercan- 
tile Library — we now have it at the Guildhall. He 
complains that the City gates have been encroached 
upon and defaced — six years later they were taken 
down. He shows us that while within the City itself 
there were oil-lamps set up at regular intervals in all 
the streets, there were none outside the Freedom. At 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



435 



that time beyond St. Martin's le Grand, and in the 
district of St. Bartholomew's, the streets were left in 
darkness absolute. This was shortly afterwards rem- 
edied. He wants stronger and stouter men for the 
City watch, and would have some stationed in differ- 
ent parts of the City in 
the daytime. That, too, 
was done, after many 
years. We must consider 
that the old theory was 
that the citizens should 
in the daytime keep or- 
der for themselves. He 
asks why no wheel car- 
riages are permitted on 
the north side of St. 
Paul's. He might ask 
che same question still, 
and the answer would be 

that it is a very great happiness to be able to keep 
one, if only one, street in London free from carts and 
omnibuses. 

He then proceeds to propose the erection of eques- 
trian statues in various parts of the City. This has 
now been accomplished, but yet we are not wholly 
satisfied. He would put up piazzas, porticos, and 
triumphal arches here and there ; he would remove 
the bars and chains of Holborn, Smithfield, Alders- 
gate, Bishopsgate, and Whitechapel, and would put 
up stone piers with the City arms upon them. We 
have almost forgotten those bars and chains. He pro- 
poses a new stone bridge across the river at the mouth 
of Fleet Ditch. Blackfriars Bridge has been erected 




LUD GATE 



436 LONDON 

there. It is a most instructive pamphlet, written, it is 
evident, by a man much in advance of his age. 

The best description of London about this time is 
certainly Gay's " Trivia." Witness the following lines 
on Thames Street : 

" O who that rugged street would traverse o'er, 
That stretches, O Fleet Ditch, from thy black shore 
To the Tow'r's moated walls ? Here steams ascend 
That, in mixed fumes, the wrinkled nose offend. 
Where chandler's cauldrons boil ; where fishy prey 
Hide the wet stall, long absent from the sea; 
And where the cleaver chops the heifer's spoil, 
And where huge hogsheads sweat with trainy oil ; 
Thy breathing nostril hold: but how shall I 
Pass, where in piles Carnavian cheeses lie ; 
Cheese, that the table's closing rites denies, 
And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain, rise?" 

If you were to ask any person specially interested 
in the Church of England — not necessarily a clergy- 
man of that Church — which was the deadest and low- 
est and feeblest period in the history of the Anglican 
Church, he would, without the least hesitation, reply 
that the reign of George the Second covered that 
period. This is universally accepted. I think, how- 
ever, that one may show, without much trouble, that 
this belief is not based upon inquiry into the facts of 
the time. The Church of George the Second did not, 
it is true, greatly resemble that of this generation : it 
had its own customs, and it had its own life. It is 
certain that the churches were what is commonly call- 
ed " ugly " — that is to say, they were built by Wren, 
or were imitations of his style, and had nothing to do 
with Early English, or Decorated, or even Perpendic- 



GEORGE THE SECOND 437 

ular. Also, it is certain that the congregations sat in 
pews, each family by itself; that there were some few 
pews of greater dignity than others, where sat my 
Lord Mayor, or the aldermen, or the sheriffs, or the 
masters of City companies. It is also certain that all 
the churches had galleries ; that the services were per- 
formed from a " three-decker ;" that the sermon was 
preached in a black gown, and that the clergyman 
called himself a minister, and not a priest. All these 
things are abominations to some of us in the latter 
half of the nineteenth century. There were al§o plu- 
ralists ; the poor were left very much to themselves, 
and the parish was not " worked " according to mod- 
ern ideas. There were no mothers' meetings, no day 
in the country, no lectures and tea- meetings ; no 
activity; no "working," in fact, at all. But was it 
quite a dead time? Let us see. 

There were at that time a hundred and nine parish 
churches in London and Westminster. At forty-four 
of these there was daily service — surely this is a rec- 
ognized indication of some religious activity — at one 
of these there were three daily services ; at all of them 
■ — the whole hundred and nine — there were services 
every Wednesday and Friday, and on all holy days 
and saints' days. There were endowments for occa- 
sional sermons in nearly every church. So much of 
the Puritan spirit remained that the sermon was still 
considered the most important part of Church serv- 
ice ; in other words, sound doctrine being then held 
to be essential to salvation, instruction in doctrine was 
considered of far greater importance than prayer or 
praise; a fact which quite sufficiently accounts for 
the slovenly character of Church services down to 



438 LONDON 

thirty or forty years ago. The singing, observe, might 
be deplorable, but the sermon — the essential — was 
sound. 

Sound doctrine. That was the one thing needful. 
It trampled on everything else. Of commercial mo- 
rality, of the duties and responsibilities of masters 
towards servants, of any rights possessed by the pro- 
ducers either in their produce or in their government, 
or in their power to better their position, not one 
word was ever said. The same men who would grave- 
ly and earnestly and with fervent prayers discuss the 
meaning of a text, would take a share in a slaver 
bound for the Guinea Coast and Jamaica, or go out to 
watch the flogging of a wretch at the cart-tail, or the 
hanging of a poor woman for stealing a loaf of bread, 
without a thought that they were doing or witnessing 
anything but what was right and laudable. The same 
men would cheerfully pay their servants wages just 
enough to live upon and make tenfold, twentyfold 
profit to themselves, and think they were doing God 
service. So far the religious life of the century was 
low and feeble. But the science of morals advances ; 
it has very little indeed to do with sound doctrine, 
but a great deal with human brotherhood ; could we 
look into the middle of the next century we should 
perhaps shudder to discover how we ourselves will be 
regarded as inhuman sweaters and oppressors of the 
poor. Let us, therefore, cease to speak of our fore- 
fathers with contempt. They had their religion ; it 
differed from ours; we have ours, and our grand- 
children's will differ from that. 

There were no Sunday-schools. These came in tow- 
ards the end of the century ; still there were schools 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



439 



in almost every parish in the City. At these schools 
the children were instructed in the rudiments of the 
Christian faith. Why, the free-schools of the City, 
without counting the great grammar-schools of St. 
Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Charter House, Christ's 
Hospital, the Mercers', St. Olave's, and St. Saviour's, 
gave instruction to five thousand boys and half that 
number of girls. There was not a poor boy of re- 
spectable parents in the whole City, I believe, who 
could not receive a sound education — quite as good 







davenant's school 



as he would now get at a Board School, and on Sun- 
day he had to go to church and was duly catechised. 

The theory of parish organization in the last cen- 
tury was very simple, yet it was effective. The par- 
ishes were small — some of them tiny in their dimen- 



440 LONDON 

sions — so that, although they were densely populated, 
the rector or vicar knew every soul that belonged to 
his church. The affairs of the people — the care of 
the poor — were provided for by the companies. The 
children were taught at the free-schools or the gram- 
mar-schools. At fourteen a boy was made a prentice, 
and entered some livery. Once in a company, his 
whole life was assured. He would get regular work ; 
he would have the wages due ; he would marry ; his 
children would be cared for as he had been. He 
would be looked after not by the Church — that was 
not the function of the Church — but by his company, 
in sickness and in age, as well as in time of strength 
and work. Every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and 
holy day there were services, with sermons ; but we 
need not suppose that the working-man considered it 
his duty to flock to the week-day services. On Sun- 
day, of course, he went, because the whole parish was 
expected to be in church. They did attend. Station 
and order were preserved within the church as with- 
out. The rich merchants and the masters sat in the 
most beautiful pews possible to conceive, richly carved 
with blazoned shields and figures in white and gold, 
with high backs, above which the tops of the wigs 
proudly nodded. These pews were gathered about 
the pulpit, which was itself a miracle of carved work, 
though perhaps it was only a box stuck onto the 
wall. The altar, the walls, the galleries were all adorn- 
ed with wood-carvings. Under the galleries and in 
the aisles, on plain benches, sat the folk who worked 
for wages, the bedesmen and bedeswomen, and the 
charity children. The retail people, who kept the 
shops, had less eligible pews behind their betters. 



GEORGE THE SECOND 441 

They left the church in order, the great people first, 
then the lesser, and then the least. No order and 
rank — all to be equal — in the house of the Lord? 
Nonsense ! How could that be allowed when He 
has ordained that they shall be unequal outside His 
house? The notion of equality in the Church is 
quite a modern idea. It is not yet accepted, though 
here and there it is tolerated. It is, in fact, revolu- 
tionary ; it is subversive of rank. Are we to under- 
stand that it is as easy for a pauper to get into the 
kingdom of heaven as a prince ? We may say so, 
but, my friends, no prince will ever be got to be- 
lieve it. 

An excellent example of a last-century church is to 
be seen in Thames Street. It is the Church of All 
Hallows the Great. The building is a square room, 
with no beauty except that of proportion ; it is rich 
in wood - carvings ; the pulpit, lavishly adorned with 
precious work, ought to belong to some great cathe- 
dral ; it has got a screen of carved wood right across 
the church which is most beautiful. The old arrange- 
ment of the last century is still preserved ; the pulpit 
is placed against the middle of the wall ; the pews of 
the merchants are gathered about, while the pews of 
the common people are those nearest to the com- 
munion table. Formerly the latter were appropri- 
ated to the watermen's apprentices. These youths, 
once the hope of the Thames, sat with their backs 
to the table, and have left the record of their presence 
in their initials carved with dates on the sloping 
book-stand. There they are, "J. F. 1710," " B. R. 
1734," with a rude carving of a ship, showing how 
they beguiled the tedium of the sermon. The ar- 



442 LONDON 

rangement of the pews illustrates the importance in 
which the sermon was held. The people, as at Paul's 
Cross, gathered about the preacher. The modern im- 
patience with which the sermon is received is mainly 
owing to the fact that we no longer feel so strongly 
the importance of sound doctrine ; we have come to 
think, more or less clearly, that the future of a man 
cannot possibly depend upon the question whether he 
has at any time expressed assent or consent to certain 
doctrines which he is wholly incapable of understand- 
ing. We see around us so many forms of creed that 
we have grown careless, or tolerant, or contemptuous, 
or charitable concerning doctrine. 

There were penalties for absence from service. A 
man who stayed away was liable to the censure of the 
Church, with a fine of one shilling for every offence. 
He was called upon to prove where he had been to 
church, because it was not thought possible that any- 
body should stay away from service altogether. If a 
person harbored in his house one who did not attend 
the parish church, he was liable to a fine of ,£20 a 
month ; the third part of the fine being given to the 
informer. I do not suppose that these laws were ever 
rigidly enforced ; otherwise the Nonconformists would 
have cried out oftener and louder. But their spirit 
remained. During the week, the parish, save for the 
services, was left to take care of itself. There were 
no visits, no concerts, no magic lanterns, no Bible 
classes, no missionary meeting — nothing — everybody 
attended to his own business. The men worked all 
day long ; the women looked after the house all day 
long ; in the evenings the taverns were crowded ; there 
were clubs of all kinds ; everybody took his tobacco 



GEORGE THE SECOND 443 

and his glass at a tavern or a club, and no harm was 
thought of it. 

For the old people there were almshouses, and there 
was the bounty of the companies. And since there 
must be always poor people among us, there were 
doles in every parish. Special cases were provided 
for as they arose by the merchants themselves. Fi- 
nally, if one was sick or dying, the clergyman went to 
read the office appointed for the sick ; and when one 
died, he read the office appointed for the dead. 

All this is simple and intelligible. The Church pro- 
vided instruction in doctrine for old and young, forms 
of prayer, consolation in sickness, baptism, communion, 
and burial for all ; some churches had charitable en- 
dowments ; the rest was left to the parishioners them- 
selves. This is not quite the modern idea of the 
parish, but it seems to have worked as well as our own 
practice. Their clergyman was a divine, and nothing 
more ; ours undertakes the care of the poor first of 
all ; he is the administrator of charity ; he is, next, the 
director of schools, the organizer of amusements, the 
leader of athletics, the trainer of the choir, the presi- 
dent of musical societies, the founder of working-lad's 
institutes ; he also reads the service at church, and he 
preaches a short sermon every Sunday ; but the latter 
functions are not much regarded by his people. Their 
clergyman was a divine ; he was therefore a scholar. 
Therein lies the whole difference. We have no divines 
now, and very few scholars among the parish clergy, or 
even among the bishops. Here and there one or two 
divines are found upon the Episcopal bench, and one or 
two at Oxford and Cambridge ; in the parish churches, 
none. We do not ask for divines, or even for preach- 



444 



LONDON 



J 



ers; we want organizers, administrators, athletes, and 
singers. And the only reason for calling the time of 
George the Second a dead time for the Church seems 
to be that its clergy were not like our own. 

Let us walk abroad and view the streets. They are 
changed, indeed, since Stow led us from St. Andrew's 
Undershaft to St. Paul's. The old gabled houses are 
all gone, except in the narrow limits of that part spared 
by the fire ; in their places are tall houses with large 
sash windows and fiat facade. Within, they are wains- 
coted, the fashion of tapestry having completely gone 
out. Foot-passengers are protected by rows of posts 
at intervals of four or five feet. Flat paving-stones are 
not in general use, and those that have been laid down 
are small and insecure. The shops are small, and 
there is little pretence at displaying the goods ; they 
have, however, all got windows 
in front. A single candle, or 
two at the most, illuminate the 
wares in the evening or the 
short afternoons of winter. A 
sign hangs out over every door. 
The drawing of St. Dunstan's 
in the West shows that part 
of Fleet Street before the pav- 
ing-stones were laid down. The 
only pavement both for the 
road and the footway consist- 
ed of large, round pebbles, 
over which the rolling of the 
vehicles made the most dreadful noise. In the year 
1762, however, an improvement was introduced in 
Westminster, followed by the City of London in 1766. 




GEORGE THE SECOND 



445 




ii)i 



ST. dunstan's in the west 



The roads were paved with squares of Scotch granite 
laid in gravel ; the posts were removed ; a curb was 
laid down ; gutters provided, and the footway paved 
with flat stones. About the same time the corpora- 
tion took down the overhanging signs, removed the 
City gates, covered over Fleet Ditch, and broadened 
numerous narrow passages. The drawing here repro- 
duced of the Monument and the beginning of London 
Bridge dates between 1757 and 1766; for the houses 
are already down in the bridge — this was done in 1757, 
and the posts and signs are not yet removed from the 
street. The view gives an excellent idea of a London 
street of that time. The posts were by no means all 



446 LONDON 

removed. The drawing of Temple Bar from Butcher 
Row, taken as late as 1796, in which they are still 
standing, shows this. It also shows the kind of houses 
in the lower streets. Butcher Row, though it stood 
in the Strand at the back of St. Clement's Church, a 
highly respectable quarter, was one of the most dis- 
reputable places in the whole of London — given over 
to crimps, flash lodging-houses, and people of the 
baser sort. 

There are certain dangers and inconveniences in 
walking along the streets : the finest dress may be 
ruined by the carelessness of a dustman or a chimney- 
sweep ; the custom of exposing meat on open bulk- 
heads leads to many an irreparable stain of grease. 
Bullies push the peaceful passenger into the gutter — 
it is a great time for street swagger ; barbers blow the 
flour into wigs at open doorways, causing violent 
wrath among those outside ; mad bulls career up and 
down the streets; men quarrel, make a ring, and fight 
it out before the traffic can go on ; pickpockets are 
both numerous and dexterous; footpads abound in the 
open squares of Lincoln's Inn, Bloomsbury, and Port- 
man ; highwaymen swarm on all the roads ; men- 
servants are insolent and rascally ; the noise in the 
leading streets is deafening ; in a shower the way 
becomes impassable from the rain-spouts on the roof, 
which discharge their contents upon the streets below. 

We who now object to the noise of a barrel-organ 
in the street, or a cry of milk, or a distant German 
band, would be driven mad by a single day of George 
the Second's London streets. Hogarth has touched 
the subject, but only touched it. No one could do 
more in a picture than indicate the mere fringe of 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



447 



this vast subject. Even on the printed page we can 
do little more than the painter. For instance, here 
were some of the more common and every-day and 
all -day -long noises. Many of the shopkeepers still 
kept up the custom of having a prentice outside 
bawling an invitation to buy — buy — buy. To this 
day, butchers at Clare Market cry out at the stalls, 
all day long, " Rally up, ladies ! Rally up! Buy! 
Buy! Buy!" In the streets of private houses there 
passed a never-ending procession of those who bawled 
things for sale. Here were a few of the things they 







APPROACH TO LONDON BRIDGE 



448 LONDON 

bawled — I am conscious that it is a very imperfect 
list. There were those who offered to do things — 
mend chairs, grind knives, solder pots and pans, buy 
rags or kitchen stuff, rabbit skins, hair, or rusty swords, 
exchange old clothes or wigs, mend old china, cut 
wires — this excruciating, rasping operation was ap- 
parently done in the open — or cooper casks. There 
were, next, the multitude of those who carried wares 
to sell — as things to eat and drink — saloop, barley 
broth, rice, milk, furmity, Shrewsbury cakes, eggs, 
lily-white vinegar, hot peascods, rabbits, birds, pul- 
lets, gingerbread, oysters, honey, cherry ripe, Chaney 
oranges, hot codlins, pippins, fruit of all kinds, fish 
taffity tarts, fresh-water, tripe, tansy, greens, mustard, 
salt, gray pease, water-cresses, shrimps, rosemary, lav- 
ender, milk, elder-buds ; or things of domestic use — 
lace, ribbons, almanacs, ink, small coal, sealing-wax, 
wood to cleave, earthen-ware, spigots, combs, buckles, 
leghorns, pewter pots, brooms in exchange for old 
shoes, things of horn, Holland socks, woollen socks 
and wrappers, brimstone matches, flint and steel, shoe- 
laces, scissors and tools, straps, and the thousand-and- 
one things which are now sold in shops. The bear- 
ward came along with his animal and his dogs and his 
drum, the sweep shouted from the house-top, the bal- 
lad-singer bawled in the road, the tumbler and the 
dancing-girl set up their pitch with pipe and drum. 
Nobody minded how much noise was made. In the 
smaller streets the good -wives sat with open doors, 
running in and out, gossiping over their work ; they 
liked the noise, they liked this perambulating market — 
it made the street lively, it brought the neighbors out 
to look, and it pleased the baby. Then the wagons 



GEORGE THE SECOND 449 

went ponderously grinding over the round stones of 
the road, the carts rumbled, the brewers' sledges 
growled, the chariot rattled, the drivers quarrelled, 
cursed, and fought. A great American, now, alas ! 
gone from us, spoke of the continual murmur of Lon- 
don as of Niagara afar off. A hundred years ago he 
would have spoken of the continual roar. 

At this time the wealth and trade of London had 
reached a point which surprised and even terrified 
those who considered the present compared with the 
past and looked forward to the future. "On a gen- 
eral view," writes Northouck in 1772, "of our national 
circumstances it is but too probable that the height 
of our prosperity is now producing our ruin." He 
hears the cry of the discontented; it means, he thinks, 
ruin. Well, there were to be mighty changes, and 
still more mighty changes of which he suspects noth- 
ing. Yet not ruin. For, whatever happens, the en- 
ergy and the spirit of the people will remain. Be- 
sides, Northouck and those of his time did not under- 
stand that the world is always growing wider. 

The great merchants of the City still lived within 
the old boundaries: they had their country-houses, 
but they spent most of their time in town, where their 
houses were stately and commodious, but no longer 
palaces like those of their predecessors. Two or three 
of them remain, but they are rapidly disappearing. 
One of these, destroyed about six years ago, illustrat- 
ed the house of a merchant at a time when his offices 
and his residence were one. The rooms for his clerks 
were on the ground floor ; the merchant's private 
room looked out upon a garden at the back. In the 
basement was his strong-room, constructed of stone, 
29 



450 LONDON 

in a deep recess. On the first floor were the living- 
rooms. The garden was not large, but it contained a 
stone terrace fine enough for a garden of much larger 
dimensions, a mulberry-tree, and a vine. 

There were no palaces left in the City; no noble- 
men lived there any longer. The Lord Mayor's Man- 
sion, built in 1750, was the only palace unless we 
count Guildhall, the Royal Exchange, Gresham Col- 
lege, and the Halls of the Companies. But in every 
street except those given up entirely to trade, such as 
Cheapside, stood the substantial house of the City 
Fathers. 

Never before had the City been so wealthy. De- 
spite the continual wars of the eighteenth century, 
nothing could check the prosperity of the country. 
French privateers scoured the ocean in chase of our 
merchantmen ; every East Indiaman had to run the 
gantlet all the way from Madeira to Plymouth ; the 
supremacy of the sea was obstinately disputed by 
France; yet more ships escaped than were taken. 
Our Indiamen fought the privateer and sank him ; 
our fleets retaliated ; our frigates protected the mer- 
chantmen, and when, as happened sometimes, we had 
the pleasure of fighting Spain as well as France, the 
balance of captures was greatly in our favor. " Sir," 
said Lord Nelson to the King, when Spain declared 
war against us, " this makes all the difference. It 
promised to be a poor war ; it will now be a rich 
war." 

" But, noble Thames, whilst I can hold a pen, 
I will divulge thy glory unto men. 
Then in the morning, when my corn is scant, 
Before the evening doth supply my want." 



GEORGE THE SECOND 45 1 

This was written by the Water Poet, John Taylor, a 
little later. The' river was the most convenient and 
the most rapid road from one end of London to the 
other, at a time when the roads were miry and full of 
holes, and when there were no coaches. And long 
after coaches became numerous, the watermen con- 
tinued to flourish. There were only two bridges over 
the river ; many places of amusement — the Paris Gar- 
dens, Cupid Gardens, St. George's Fields, and Vaux- 
hall — lay on the south side : it was pleasant and quiet 
on the water, save for the quarrels and the cursing of 
the watermen. The air was fresh : the view of the 
City was noble : the river was covered with barges and 
pleasure-boats furnished with banners and streamers 
of silk ; flocks of swans swimming about — little won- 
der if the citizens continued to prefer the river to 
their muddy lanes and noisy streets. Even in the 
last century, too, the watermen had not ceased to 
sing as they rowed. They still sang — with a " Heave 
and hoe, rumbelovv " — their old ballad of " Row the 
boat, Norman, to thy leman," made, it was said, on 
John Norman, first of the mayors who was rowed to 
Westminster by water instead of riding, as had been 
the previous custom. 

Those who have read Professor Seeley's book on the 
Extension of Britain know how our conquests, our 
power, and our trade increased during that long strug- 
gle with France. We had losses ; we made an enemy 
beyond the Atlantic who should have been our firm- 
est friend and ally ; we were hampered with conti- 
nental possessions ; we were continually suffering enor- 
mous drains of money and of men ; we were throwing 
away our lusty youth by hundreds of thousands; yet 



452 



LONDON 



,a,:-\.^"' .■:.■■:- i '-'-■•«■>■. 

"'j ; | 
"VMS » ; 








ABOVE DKIIK.E 



we continued to grow stronger and richer every year. 
The wars advanced trade; the wars pushed forward 
our territories; our increased trade paid for the wars; 
the wars provided occupation for younger sons. 

By this time, too, the companies were at their rich- 
est ; their charities were at their fullest ; their ban- 
quets and functions were most lavish and splendid. 

Take the rich Company of Haberdashers alone for 
its benefactions. This company maintained two free- 
schools in London and three in the country ; two 
almshouses in London and two in the country ; it 
presented to six benefices in the country; it provided 



GEORGE THE SECOND 453 

three lectureships in city churches and one in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge ; it gave five exhibitions to Cam- 
bridge, and it provided pensions for forty-eight poor 
men and women. In these charities the company 
disbursed about £3400 a year. At the present day it 
gives away a great deal more owing to the increased 
value of its property, but as London is so much 
larger the effect is not so great in proportion. This 
list of charities, again, does not include the execution 
of certain testamentary and private charities, as broad- 
cloth to poor widows, gifts to prisoners for debt, pay- 
ments for ringing the church -bell, weekly doles of 
bread, and so forth. The Haberdashers' Company 
was one of the twelve great companies, all wealthy. 
If each of these gave away yearly the sum of ,£2000 
only, we have ^"24,000 a year. There were, besides, 
all the smaller companies, and not one without some 
funds for charity, education, or pensions. A boy born 
in the City might be educated by Kis father's com- 
pany, apprenticed to the company, taught his trade 
by the- company, found in work by the company, 
feasted once a year by the company, pensioned by 
the company, buried by the company, and his chil- 
dren looked after by the company. If he fell into 
debt, and so arrived at Ludgate Hill Prison, the boun- 
ty of the company followed him there. And even if 
he disgraced himself and was lodged in Newgate, the 
company augmented the daily ration of bread with 
something more substantial. In all, there were (and 
are) eighty -four City companies, representing every 
trade except those which are of modern origin. Among 
these are not counted such companies as the Whit- 
awers, the Fustarers, and the Megusers, long since dis- 



454 LONDON 

solved. But the Pewterers, the Bowyers, the Fletch- 
ers, the Long Bowstring Makers, the Patten Makers, 
and the Loriners have survived the trades which they 
were founded to maintain. Some of them have no 
hall and very small endowments. One, the Card 
Makers, presents each member of the company with 
a pack of playing-cards every year, and with this sin- 
gle act expends, I believe, all the endowment which 
it possesses. 

By poetic license, quite pardonable when assumed 
by Austin Dobson or by Praed, we speak of the leisure 
of the eighteenth century. Where is it — this leisure? 
I can find it nowhere. In London City the sober mer- 
chant who walks so gravely on 'Change is an eager, 
venturesome trader, pushing out his cargoes into every 
quarter of the globe, as full of enterprise as an Eliza- 
bethan, following the flag wherever that leads, and 
driving the flag before him. He belongs to a battling, 
turbulent time. His blood is full of fight. He makes 
enormous profits ; sometimes he makes enormous 
losses; then he breaks; he goes under; he never lifts 
up his head again ; he is submerged — he and his, for 
the City has plenty of benevolence, but little pity. 
We are all pushing, struggling, fighting to get ahead. 
We cannot stop to lift up one that has fallen and is 
trampled under foot. In the City there stands behind 
us a Fury armed with a knotted scourge. Let us 
work, my brothers, let us never cease to work, for this 
is the terrible pitiless demon called Bankruptcy. If 
there is no leisure or quiet among the sober citizens, 
where shall we look for it? In the country? We are 
not here concerned with the country, but I have looked 
for it there and I cannot find it. 



GEORGE THE SECOND 455 

It was the dream of every tradesman not only to 
escape this fiend, but in fulness of time to retire from 
his shop and to have his own country-house; or, if 
that could not be compassed, to have a box three or 
four miles from town — at Stockwell, Clapham, Hox- 
ton, or Bow, or Islington — whither he might drive on 
Saturday or other days, in a four-wheeled chaise. He 
loved to add a bow-window to the front, at which he 
would sit and watch the people pass, his wine before 
him, for the admiration and envy of all who beheld. 
The garden at the back, thirty feet long by twenty 
broad, he laid out with great elegance. There was a 
gravel-walk at each end, a pasteboard grenadier set 
up in one walk, and a sundial in the other. In the 
middle there was a basin with two artificial swans, 
over which he moralized : " Sir. I bought those fowls 
seven years ago. They were then as white as could 
be made. Now they are black. Let us learn that the 
strongest things decay, and consider the flight of time." 
He put weathercocks on his house-top, and when they 
pointed, different ways he reflected that there is no 
station so exalted as to be free from the inconsisten- 
cies and wants of life. 

His wife, of course, was a notable house-keeper. It 
is recorded of her that she would never employ a man 
unless he could whistle. So that when he was sent to 
draw beer, or to bottle wine, or to pick cherries, or to 
gather strawberries, by whistling all the time he proved 
that his mouth was empty, because you cannot whistle 
with anything in your mouth. She made her husband 
take off his shoes before going up-stairs ; she lamented 
the gigantic appetites of the journeymen whom they 
had to keep " peck and perch " all the year round ; 



456 



LONDON 



she loved a pink sash and a pink ribbon, and when 
she went abroad she was genteelly " fetched " by an 
apprentice or one of the journeymen with candle and 
lantern. 

The amusements and sights of London were the 
Tower, the Monument, St. Paul's and Westminster 
Abbey, the British Museum (after the year 1754, when 
it was first opened), the Royal Exchange, the Bank of 
England, Guildhall, the East India House, the Custom- 
house, the Excise Office, the Navy Office, the bridges, 
the Horse Guards, the squares, the Inns of Court, St. 
James's Palace, the two theatres of Drury Lane and 
Covent Garden, the Opera-house, Ranelagh, Sadler's 




ST. JAMES S l'ALACE -MARCH OF THE GUARDS 



GEORGE THE SECOND 457 

Wells, Vauxhall, Astley's, the Park, the tea-gardens, 
Don Saltero's, Chelsea, the trials at the Old Bailey, the 
hangings at Newgate, the Temple Gardens, the parade 
of the Judges to Westminster Hall, the charity chil- 
dren at St. Paul's, Greenwich Fair, the reviews of the 
troops, the House of Lords when the King is present 
and the peers are robed, Smithfield, Billingsgate, Wool- 
wich, Chelsea Hospital, Greenwich Hospital, and the 
suburbs. With these attractions a stranger could get 
along for a few days without much fear of ennui. 

The London fairs — Bartholomew, Greenwich, South- 
wark, May Fair — no longer, of course, pretended to have 
anything to do with trade. They were simply occa- 
sions for holiday-making and indulgence in undisguised 
license and profligacy. They had bull and bear bait- 
ing, cock-fighting, prize-fighting, cudgel-playing — these 
of course. They also had their theatres and their 
shows and their jugglers. They had races of women, 
fights of women, and dancing of girls for a prize. They 
continued the old morris -dance of five men, Maid 
Marian and Tom Fool, the last with a fox-brush in his 
hat, and bells on his legs and on his coat-tails. They 
were fond of rope-dancing — in a word, the fairs drew 
together all the rascality of the town and the country 
around. May Fair was stopped in the year 1708, but 
was revived some years afterwards. Southwark Fair, 
which was opened by the Lord Mayor and sheriffs 
riding over the bridge through the borough, was not 
suppressed till 1763. The only good thing it did was 
to collect money for the poor prisoners of Marshalsea 
Prison. Bartholomew and Greenwich Fair continued 
till thirty or forty years ago. 

The picturesqueness of the time is greatly due to 



458 LONDON 

the dress. We all know how effective on the stage or 
at a fancy ball is the dress of the year 1750. Never 
had gallant youth a better chance of displaying his 
manly charms. The flowered waistcoat tight to the 
figure, the white satin coat, the gold-laced hat, the 
ruffles and dainty necktie, the sword and the sword- 
sash, the powdered wig, the shaven face, the silk stock- 
ings and gold-buckled shoes — with what an air the 
young coxcomb advances, and with what a grace he 
handles his clouded cane and proffers his snuffbox ! 
Nothing like it remains in this century of ours. And 
the ladies matched the men in splendor of dress, until 
the " swing swang " of the extravagant hoop spoiled 
all. Here comes one, on her way to church, where 
she will distract the men from their prayers with her 
beauty, and the women with her dress. She has a 
flowered silk body and cream-colored skirts trimmed 
with lace ; she has light blue shoulder-knots ; she wears 
an amber necklace, brown Swedish gloves, and a silver 
bracelet ; she has a flowered silk belt of green and 
gray and yellow, with a bow at the side, and a brown 
straw-hat with flowers of green and yellow. " Sir," 
says one who watches her with admiration, " she is all 
apple blossom." 

The white satin coat is not often seen east of Tem- 
ple Bar. See the sober citizen approaching : he is 
dressed in brown stockings ; he has laced ruffles and 
a shirt of snowy whiteness ; his shoes have silver 
buckles ; his wig is dark grizzle, full-bottomed ; he car- 
ries his hat under his left arm, and a gold-headed stick 
in his right hand. He is accosted by a wreck — there 
are always some of these about London streets — who 
has struck upon the rock of bankruptcy and gone 



GEORGE THE SECOND 459 

down. He, too, is dressed in brown, but where are the 
ruffles? Where is the shirt ? The waistcoat, buttoned 
high, shows no shirt; his stockings are of black worsted, 
darned and in holes ; his shoes are slipshod, without 




RANEI.AGH 



buckles. Alas ! poor gentleman ! And his wig is an 
old grizzle, uncombed, undressed, dirty, which has been 
used for rubbing shoes by a shoeblack. On the other 
side of the street walks one, followed by a prentice 
carrying a bundle. It is a mercer of Cheapside, taking 
some stuff to a lady. He wears black cloth, not brown ; 
he has a white tye-wig, white silk stockings, muslin 
ruffles, and japanned pumps. Here comes a mechanic : 



460 LONDON 

he wears a warm waistcoat with long sleeves, gray 
worsted stockings, stout shoes, a three-cornered hat, 
and an apron. All working-men wear an apron ; it is 
a mark of their condition. They are no more ashamed 
of their apron than your scarlet -coated captain is 
ashamed of his uniform. 

Let us note the whiteness of the shirts and ruffles: 
a merchant will change his shirt three times a day; it 
is a custom of the City thus to present snow-white 
linen. The clerks, we see, wear wigs like their masters, 
but they are smaller. The varieties of wigs are end- 
less. Those that decorate the heads of the clerks are 
not the full-bottomed wig, to assume which would be 
presumptuous in one in service. Most of the mechan- 
ics wear their hair tied behind ; the rustics, sailors, 
stevedores, watermen, and river-side men generally wear 
it long, loose, and unkempt. There is a great trade in 
second-hand wigs. In Rosemary Lane there is a wig 
lottery. You pay sixpence, and you dip in a cask for 
an old wig. It may turn out quite a presentable thing, 
and it may be worthless. Here is a company of sail- 
ors rolling along armed with clubs. They are bound 
to Ratcliffe, where, this evening, when the men are all 
drinking in the taverns, there will be a press. Their 
hats are three-cornered, they wear blue jackets, blue 
shirts, and blue petticoats. Their hair hangs about 
their ears. Beside them marches the lieutenant in the 
new uniform of blue, faced with white. 

Let us consider the private life of the people day 
by day. For this purpose we must not go to the es- 
sayists or the dramas. The novels of the time afford 
some help ; books corresponding to our directories, 
almanacs, old account-books, are the real guides to a 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



461 




NORTH VIEW OF THE MAR 
SHELSEA, SOUTHWARK 



reconstruction of life as it was about the year 1750. 
From such books as these the following notes are 
derived. 

The most expensive parts of the town were the 
streets round St. Paul's Church-yard, Cheapside, and 
the Royal Exchange. Charing Cross, Covent Gar- 
den, and St. James's lie outside our limits. Here the 
rent of a moderate house was from a hundred to a 
hundred and fifty guineas a year. In less central 
places the rents were not more than half as much. 
There were six or seven fire insurance offices. The 
premium for insurance on houses and goods not 



462 LONDON 

called hazardous was generally two shillings per cent, 
on any sum under ,£1000, half a crown on all sums 
between ^"iooo and .£2000, and three and sixpence 
on all sums over ^3000, so that a man insuring his 
house and furniture for ^2500 would pay an annual 
premium of £4 ys. 6d. 

The taxes of a house amounted to about half the 
rent. There was the land-tax of four shillings in the 
pound ; the house-tax of sixpence to a shilling in the 
pound ; the poor-rate, varying from one shilling to six 
shillings in the pound ; the window-tax, which made 
you pay first three shillings for your house, and then, 
with certain exceptions, twopence extra for every win- 
dow, so that a house of fourteen windows paid four 
and sixpence. In the year 1784 this tax was in- 
creased in order to take the duty off tea. The 
church- wardens' rate for repairing the church; the 
paving- rate, of one and sixpence in the pound; the 
watch ; the Easter offerings, which had become op- 
tional ; the water-rate, varying from twenty-four shil- 
lings to thirty shillings a year. 

The common practice of bakers and milkmen was 
to keep a tally on the door-post with chalk. One ad- 
vantage of this method was that a mark might be 
added when the maid was not looking. The price of 
meat was about a third of the present prices ; beef be- 
ing fourpence a pound, mutton fourpence halfpenny, 
and veal sixpence. Chicken were commonly sold at 
two and sixpence the pair; eggs were sometimes 
three and sometimes eight for fourpence, according to 
the time of year. Coals seem to have cost about 
forty shillings a ton; but this is uncertain. Candles 
were eight and fourpence a dozen for " dips," and nine 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



463 



and fourpence a dozen for "moulds;" wax -candles 
were two and tenpence a pound. For out-door lamps 
train-oil was used, and for in-doors spermaceti-oil. 
For the daily dressing of the hair, hair-dressers were 
engaged at seven shillings to a guinea a month. Serv- 
ants were hired at register offices, but they were often 
of very bad character, with forged papers. The wages 
given were: to women as cooks, ^"12 a year; lady's- 
maids, £12 to £20; house-maids from £7 to £9; foot- 
men, ,£14 and a livery. Servants found their own tea 




CHARING CROSS 



464 LONDON 

and sugar, if they wanted any. Board wages were 
ten and sixpence a week to an upper servant ; seven 
shillings to an under servant. Every householder was 
liable to serve as church-warden, overseer for the poor, 
constable — but he could serve by deputy — and jury- 
man. Peers, clergymen, lawyers, members of Parlia- 
ment, physicians, and surgeons were exempted. 

The principle of life assurance was already well es- 
tablished, but not yet in general use. There seem to 
have been no more than four companies for life as- 
surance. The Post-office rates varied with the dis- 
tance. A letter from London to any place not ex- 
ceeding one stage cost twopence ; under two stages, 
threepence; under eight miles, fourpence ; under 150 
miles, fivepence ; above 150 miles, to any place in 
England, sixpence ; to Scotland, sevenpence ; to Ire- 
land, sixpence; to America and the West Indies, a 
shilling ; to any part of Europe, a shilling to eighteen- 
pence. There was also a penny post, first set up in 
London by a private person. This had five principal 
offices. Letters or packets not exceeding four ounces 
in weight were carried about the City for one penny, 
and delivered in the suburbs for a penny more. There 
were no bank-notes of less than ^20 before the year 
1759; but when the smaller notes were issued, and 
came into general use, people very soon found out the 
plan of cutting them in two for safety in transmission 
by post. 

Mail-coaches started every night at eight o'clock 
with a guard. They were timed for seven miles an 
hour, and the fare for passengers was fourpence a mile. 
A passenger to Bristol, for example, who now pays 
twenty shillings first-class fare and does the journey 



GEORGE THE SECOND 465 

in two hours and a half, then paid thirty -three and 
fourpence, and took fourteen hours and a quarter. A 
great many of the mails started from the Swan with 
Two Necks, a great hostlery and receiving -place in 
Lad Lane. The place is now swept away with Lad 
Lane itself. It stood in the part of Gresham Street 
which runs between Wood Street and Milk Street. 

The stage-coaches from different parts of London 
were innumerable, as were also the stage-wagons and 
the hoys. The coaches charged the passengers three- 
pence a mile. Hackney-coaches ran for shilling and 
eighteenpenny fares. There were hackney-chairs. In 
the City there were regular porters for carrying parcels 
and letters. 

There were nine morning papers, of which the 
Morning Post still survives. They were all published 
at threepence. There, were eight evening papers, 
which came out three times a week. And there were 
three or four weekly papers, intended chiefly for the 
country. 

The stamps which had to be bought with anything 
were a grievous burden. A pair of gloves worth ten- 
pence — stamp of one penny; worth one and four- 
pence — stamp of twopence ; above one and fourpence 
— stamp of fourpence. Penalty for selling without a 
stamp, £5. Hats were taxed in like manner. Inven- 
tories and catalogues were stamped ; an apprentice's 
indentures were stamped ; every newspaper paid a 
stamp of three halfpence. In the year 1753 there 
were seven millions and a half of stamps issued to the 
journals. 

We have seen what it cost a respectable household- 
er to pay his way in the time of Charles the Second. 
30 



466 LONDON 

The following shows the cost of living a hundred 
years later. The house is supposed to consist of 
husband and wife, four children, and two maids : 

Food, coals, candles, small beer (of which 12 gallons 
are allowed — that is, 48 quarts, or an average of one 
quart a day per head), soap, starch, and all kinds of 
odds and ends are reckoned at ,£3 12s. $d. a week, or 
,£189 18s. 8d. a year; clothes, including hair-dressing, 
£64; pocket expenses, £15 12s.; occasional illness, 
;£ii ; schooling, £8 ; wages, £14 10s.; rent and taxes, 
£66; entertainments, wine, etc., £30 19^./ making a 
total of ^400 a year. 

If we take the same family with the same scale of 
living at the present day, we shall arrive at the differ- 
ence in the cost of things : 

1890 1760 
£ £ 

Food, coals, ale, etc • . . . . 420 190 

Clothes 120 64 

Pocket expenses 45 15 

School 143 8 

Illness 42 11 

Wages of two maids 42 14 

Rent and taxes (not counting income-tax) 1 50 66 

Travelling 150 nil 

Books, Magazines, and Journals (say) . . 40 nil 

Wine 70 31 

On furniture and the house 100 nil 

A comparison of the figures shows a very consider- 
able raising of the standard as regards comfort and 
even necessaries. It is true that the modern figures 
have been taken from the accounts of a family which 
spends every year from £1200 to ^"1400. 

It may be remarked in these figures that schooling 



GEORGE THE SECOND 467 

is extremely cheap, viz., £8 per four children, or ten 
shillings a quarter for each child. Therefore for a 
school -master to get an income of £250 a year, out 
of which he would have to maintain assistants, he 
must have 125 scholars. The "pocket expenses" in- 
clude letters, and all for six shillings a week, which is 
indeed moderate. Entertainments, wine, etc., are all 
lumped together, showing that wine must be consid- 
ered a very rare indulgence, and that small beer is the 
daily beverage. Tea is set down at two shillings a 
week. In the year 1728 tea was thirteen shillings a 
pound, but by 1760 it had gone down to about six 
shillings a pound, so that a third of a pound was al- 
lowed every week. This shows a careful measure- 
ment of the spoonful. Of course there was not as 
yet any tea allowed to the servants. Coals are esti- 
mated at .£14 a year — two fires in winter, one in sum- 
mer. Repairs to furniture, table-linen, sheets, etc., are 
set down at two shillings a week, or five guineas a 
year. Happy the household which can now manage 
this item at six times that amount. 

It might be thought that by the middle of the last 
century the beverage of tea was universally taken in 
this country. This was by no means the case. The 
quantity of tea imported about this time amounted to 
no more than three-quarters of a pound per annum 
for every person in the three kingdoms, whereas it is 
now no less than thirty -five pounds for every head. 
It was, and had been for fifty years, a fashionable 
drink, and it had now become greatly in use — or, at 
all events, greatly desired — by women of all kinds. 
The men drank little of it ; men in the country and 
working-men not at all. Its use was not so far gen- 



468 LONDON 

eral as to stop the discussion which still continued as 
to its virtues. In the year 1749 it was ten shillings a 
pound. In 1758 a pamphlet was written by an anony- 
mous writer on the good and bad effects of drinking 
tea. We learn from this that the author is alarmed 
at the spreading of the custom of tea-drinking, espe- 
cially by " Persons of an inferior rank and mean Abil- 
ities." "It may not," he says, "be altogether above 
the reach of the better Sort of Tradesmen's Wives 
and Country Dames. But nowadays Persons of the 
Lowest Class vainly imitate their Betters by striving 
to be in the fashion, and prevalent Custom hath intro- 
duced it into every Cottage, and every Gammer must 
have her tea twice a day." The latter statement is 
rank exaggeration, as the imports show. 

Especially the author finds fault with afternoon tea. 
" It is very hurtful," he says, " to those who work hard 
and live low ; when taken in company with gossips a 
dram too often follows ; then comes scandal, with false- 
hoods, perversions, and backbitings ; it is an expense 
which very few can afford ; it is a waste of time which 
ought to be spent in spinning, knitting, making clothes 
for the children. Oh, I here with confusion stop, and 
know not how sufficiently to bewail my grief to you, 
delightful fair! who, by prevalent custom, are led into 
one of the worst of habits, rendering you lost to your- 
selves, and unfit for the comforts you were first de- 
signed. Be careful ; be wise ; refuse the bait ; fly from 
a temptation productive of so many ills. You charm- 
ing guiltless young ones, who innocently at home par- 
take of this genteel regale, avoid the public meetings of 
low crafty gossips, who will use persuasions for you to 
drink tea with them and some others of their own stamp." 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



469 



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A DISH OF TEA 



Another bad consequence of afternoon tea is that it 
induces the little tradesmen's wives, after selling some- 
thing, to offer their customer tea, and after that a dram, 
and so vanish all the profits. 

But the writer objects altogether to tea. He can- 
not find that it possesses any merits. The hot-water, 
the cream, and the sugar, he says, are responsible for 
all the good effects of tea-drinking. The tea itself is 



470 LONDON 

responsible for all the bad effects. He enumerates the 
opinions advanced by physicians. The learned Dr. 
Pauli, physician to the King of Denmark, shows that 
the virtues ascribed to it are local, and do not cross 
the seas into Europe. Men over forty, he thinks, 
should never use it, because it is a desiccative ; the 
herb betony should be taken by them, because it has 
all the virtues and none of the vices of tea. Schroder 
and Quincey believed it good for every complaint ; the 
learned Pechlin held that it is good for scorbutic cases, 
but thought that veronica and Paul's betony are just 
as good. Dr. Hunt enumerates many diseases for 
which its occasional use is good. Finally, the writer 
of the pamphlet concludes that tea will rapidly be- 
come cheaper ; that it will then go out of fashion ; and 
that it will be replaced by our own sage, which, he 
says, makes a much more wholesome drink, with hot- 
water, cream, and sugar. 

But a far greater person than this anonymous writer 
set his face and the whole force of his authority and 
example against the drinking of tea. This was no 
other than John Wesley, who, in the year 1748, issued 
a " Letter to a Friend, concerning Tea." The follow- 
ing extracts give the practical part of the letter, omit- 
ting the very strange argument against tea-drinking 
based upon Scripture : 

Twenty-nine years ago, when I had spent a few months at 
Oxford, having, as I apprehended, an exceeding good Consti- 
tution, and being otherwise in Health, I was a little surprised 
at some Symptoms of a Paralytick Disorder. I could not im- 
agine what should occasion that shaking of my Hand ; till I 
observed it was always worst after Breakfast, and that if I in- 
termitted drinking Tea for two or three Days, it did not shake 



GEORGE THE SECOND 471 

at all. Upon Inquiry, I found Tea had the same effect upon 
others also of my Acquaintance; and therefore saw, that this 
was one of its natural Effects (as several Physicians have often 
remarked), especially when it is largely and frequently drank ; 
and most of all on Persons of weak Nerves. Upon this I les- 
sened the Quantity, drank it weaker, and added more Milk and 
Sugar. But still, for above six and twenty Years, I was more 
or less subject to the same Disorder. 

July was two Years, I began to observe, that abundance of 
the People in London, with whom I conversed, laboured under 
the same, and many other Paralytick Disorders, and that in a 
much higher Degree ; insomuch that some of their Nerves were 
quite unstrung; their bodily Strength was quite decay 'd, and 
they could not go through their daily Labour. I inquired, 
' Are you not an hard Drinker ?' And was answered by one 
and another, ' No, indeed, Sir, not I ! I drink scarce any Thing 
but a little Tea, Morning and Night.' I immediately remem- 
bered my own Case ; and after weighing the matter thoroughly, 
easily gathered from many concurring Circumstances, that it 
was the same Case with them. 

I considered, ' What an Advantage would it be, to these 
poor enfeebled People, if they would leave off what so mani- 
festly impairs their Health, and thereby hurts their Business 
also? — Is there Nothing equally cheap which they could use? 
Yes, surely : And cheaper too. If they used English Herbs in 
its stead (which would cost either Nothing, or what is next to 
Nothing), with the same Bread, Butter, and Milk, they would 
save just the Price of the Tea. And hereby they might not 
only lessen their Pain, but in some Degree their Poverty too ' 

Immediately it struck into my Mind, ' But Example must 
go before Precept. Therefore I must not plead an Exemption 
for myself, from a daily Practice of twenty-seven Years. I 
I must begin.' I did so. I left it off myself in August, 1746. 
And I have now had sufficient Time to try the Effects, which 
have fully answered my Expectation : My Paralytick Com- 
plaints are all gone : My Hand is as steady as it was at Fifteen : 
Although I must expect that, or other Weaknesses, soon : as 
I decline into the Yale of Years. And so considerable a Dif- 



472 LONDON 

ference do I find in my Expence, that I can make it appear, 
from the Accounts now in being, in only those four Families 
at London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle, I save upwards 
of fifty Pounds a Year. 

The first to whom I explained these Things at large, and whom 
I advised to set the same Example to their Brethren, were, a 
few of those, who rejoice to assist my Brother and me, as our 
Sons in the Gospel. A Week after I proposed it to about 
forty of those, whom I believed to be strong in Faith : And to 
the next Morning to about sixty more, intreating them all, to 
speak their Minds freely. They did so : and in the End, saw 
the Good which might insue; yielded to the Force of Scripture 
and Reason : And resolved all (but two or three) by the Grace 
of God, to make the Trial without Delay. 

If you are sincere in this Plea; if you do not talk of your 
Health, while the real Objection is your Inclination, make a 
fair Trial thus, i. Take half a Pint of Milk every Morning, with 
a little Bread, not boiled, but warmed only ; (a Man in toler- 
able Health might double the Quantity.) 2. If this is too 
heavy, add as much Water, and boil it together with a Spoon- 
ful of Oatmeal. 3. If this agrees not, try half a Pint, or a little 
more, of Water-gruel, neither thick nor thin ; not sweetened 
(for that may be apt to make you sick) but with a very little 
Butter, Salt, and Bread. 4. If this disagrees, try Sage, green 
Balm, Mint, or Pennyroyal Tea, infusing only so much of the 
Herb as just to change the Colour of the Water. 5. Try two 
or three of these mixed, in various Proportions. 6. Try ten or 
twelve other English Herbs. 7. Try Foltron, a Mixture of 
Herbs to be had at many Grocers, far healthier as well as 
cheaper than Tea. 8. Try Coco. If after having tried each of 
these, for a Week or ten Days, you find none of them well 
agree with your Constitution, then use (weak Green) Tea again ; 
But at the same Time know, That your having used it so long 
has brought you near the Chambers of Death. 

The still-room was of the greatest importance to the 
housewife. She no longer distilled strong waters for 
cordials, but she made her preserves and her pickles. 



GEORGE THE SECOND 473 

She made rose-water, and lavender-water, and hysteri- 
cal-water ; Plague-water, angelica-water, and all kinds 
of wonderful waters, whose names and virtues are now 
quite forgotten. The horror of the Plague, which sur- 
vived to a hundred years ago, is shown by the ex- 
traordinary complications of the Plague-mixture. We 
are to take a pound each of twenty roots, sixteen 
flowers, nineteen seeds; we are to take also an ounce 
each of nutmeg, cloves, and mace; we are to shred the 
flowers, bruise the berries, and pound the roots and 
spices ; to these we must add a peck of green walnuts ; 
after mixing all together they must be steeped in wine 
lees; after a week they must be distilled. 

She also made cherry-brandy, currant-gin, damson- 
brandy, and certain medicinal wines or confections, of 
which the following is a specimen. It is called Gas- 
cony wine. It comforts the vital parts, cures dropsy, 
and keeps the old alive. Yet we have neglected so 
sovereign a medicine ! 

" Take ginger, galingale, cinnamon, nutmeg, grains 
of paradise, cloves bruised, fennel seed, caraway seeds, 
origanum, one ounce each. Next, take sage, wild mar- 
jorum, pennyroyal, mint, red roses, thyme, pellitory, 
rosemary, wild thyme, camomile, lavender, one handful 
of each. Beat the spices small, bruise the herbs, put 
all into a limbeck with wine for twelve hours ; then 
distil." 

The great thing was to have as many ingredients as 
possible. Thus the Plague-water took fifty-nine ingre. 
dients ; the famous water called " Mithridate " took 
forty-six ; and the Venice treacle, sixty-two. When 
they were once made, they were warranted to "rectify 
and maintain the body, clarify the blood, surfle the 



474 LONDON 

cheek, perfume the skin, tinct the hair, and lengthen 
the appetite." 

The London citizen of the lower class never called 
in a physician unless he was in immediate danger ; the 
herbalist physicked him, and the wise woman. Very 
often his own wife was an abyss of learning as to herbs 
and their properties ; the bone-setter belonged to a 
distinct branch of the medical profession. There were 
apothecaries who prescribed as well as sold drugs. 
For instance, early in the century, one Dalmahoy kept 
a shop on Ludgate Hill, where he sold, among other 
things, drugs, potions, electuaries, powders, sweetmeats, 
washes for the complexion, scented hair-oil pomades, 
dentifrices, love charms, Italian masks to sleep in, 
spermaceti salt, and scammony squills. And the doc- 
tor who wished to attract the confidence of citizens 
found a little stage management useful. He wore 
black, of course, with a huge wig ; he carried a gold- 
headed cane, with a pomander box on the top ; he 
kept his hands always in a muff, so that they might be 
soft, warm to the touch, and delicate ; he hung his 
consulting-room with looking-glasses, and he littered 
it with vials ; he had on the mantel-shelf a skull, and 
hanging to the wall the skeleton of a monkey ; on his 
table stood a folio in Greek ; and he preserved a Cas- 
tilian gravity of countenance. Besides the physician, 
the apothecary, the herbalist, and the wise woman, 
there was the barber-surgeon. His pole was twined 
with colors three — white, red, and blue. But I know 
not how long into the century the alliance of surgeon 
and barber continued. 

One must not overlook the quack, who plays such a 
conspicuous part in the last century. There was cer- 



GEORGE THE SECOND 475 

tainly one quack — and sometimes half a dozen — at 
every fair. Some of them went about with a simple 
caravan, pulling teeth and selling potions and pills 
and powders warranted to cure every disorder. Some 
of them, more ambitious, drove round the country in 
coaches. They dressed in great wigs and black velvet ; 
they had a stage in front of their consulting-rooms, on 
which a mountebank tumbled, a girl danced on the 
tight-rope, and a band of music played. And the people 
believed in them, just as they believe nowadays in the 
fellow who advertises his pills or his powders, certain 
to cure everybody. It is only changing the coach, the 
caravan, and the stage for the advertisement columns, 
with no more expense for travelling, horses, mounte- 
bank, or music. It is just the same whether we sell 
" angelic snuff " that will cure most things, or " royal 
snuff " that will cure the rest, or electuaries, or dis- 
tilled and medicated water that will even make an old 
wig new. 

One who has looked at Mrs. Glasse's wonderful 
book on cookery, and reflects upon the variety and 
wealth of dishes which then graced the board, would 
not lightly approach the subject of food. Yet there 
are a few plats, favorites with the people, which may 
be noticed. Sage tea, for instance, with bread-and- 
butter, is no longer taken for breakfast ; and some of 
the following dishes have disappeared : Hasty pudding, 
made of flour and water boiled together, to which dabs 
of butter and spoonfuls of brown sugar were added 
when it was poured out of the pot — no one now ever 
sees sugar quite so brown as that which the West In- 
dies used to send over a hundred and fifty years ago. 
Onion pottage has assumed the more complex form 



476 LONDON 

of soup. A bean tansy was once universally beloved; 
there were two forms of it ; in the first, after bruising 
your beans, you put them in a dish with pepper, salt, 
cloves, mace, the yolks of six eggs, a quarter of a 
pound of butter, and some slices of bacon. This you 
baked. The other form was when you mixed beans, 
biscuits, sugar, sack, cream, and baked all in a dish 
with garnish of candied orange-peel. There were 
drinks in endless variety, such as purl, Old Pharaoh, 
knock-down, humtie-dumtie, stipple shouldree — names 
in this degenerate age, and nothing more. We can 
hardly understand, either, the various possets, punch 
in its hundred and fifty branches, raw shrub — which 
still stands in old-fashioned bars — and the various 
cups, porter cup, cider cup, port -wine cup, egg flip, 
rum-booze, and the rest. 

The drinking of the last century went far beyond 
anything ever recorded ; all classes alike drank ; they 
began to drink hard somewhere about the year 1730, 
and they kept it up for a hundred years with great 
spirit and admirable results, which we, their grand- 
children, are now illustrating. The clergy, grave and 
sober merchants, lawyers, judges, the most responsi- 
ble people, drank freely ; men about town, officers, 
Templars, tradesmen drank more than freely ; the low- 
est classes spent all their money in drink, especially in 
gin, upon which they could get drunk for twopence. 
In the year 1736 there were 7044 gin-shops in Lon- 
don — one house in six — and 3200 ale-houses where gin 
was secretly sold. The people all went mad after gin. 
The dinner-hour was at two for the better sort. Mrs. 
Glasse plainly shows that the living was extremely 
good, and that expense among people in easy circum- 



GEORGE THE SECOND 477 

stances was not much regarded where the table was 
concerned. Certain dishes, as in Tudor days, belonged 
to certain days, as veal and a gammon of bacon and 
a tansy pudding on Easter Day, or a roast goose at 
Michaelmas; red herrings and salt -fish, with leeks, 
parsnips, and pease in Lent; at Martinmas, salt-beef; 
at Midsummer, roast beef with butter and beans; at 
All Saints, pork and souse, " spats and spurling." 
They were great at puddings — one may find many an 
excellent receipt, long since forgotten, in Mrs. Glasse. 
For dessert they had sweetmeats, fruits, liqueurs, such 
as ros solis, rich wines, such as Lisbon and Madeira, 
or, where there were men in company, port. In the 
morning they drank tea and chocolate. It is pretty 
clear that the real business of the day was done be- 
fore dinner. That, in fact, was the custom up to 
twenty years ago in certain Yorkshire towns, where 
everybody dined at two o'clock. The clerks were 
practically left to take care of the offices in the after- 
noon, and the masters sat over their wine. It must, 
one reflects, be a large business indeed where the mas- 
ters cannot get through their share by two o'clock. 

In the evening every man had his club or coffee- 
house. We know that Dr. Johnson was unhappy un- 
less he had a club for the evening. There were clubs 
for every class : they met at taverns, they gradually 
superseded the coffee-houses for evening purposes. 
The City coffee-houses, however, became places where 
a great deal of business was carried on. Thus, at the 
Baltic was a subscription- room for merchants and 
brokers engaged in the Russia trade ; the Chapter, of 
Paternoster Row, was the resort of booksellers ; the 
Jamaica was a house of West Indian trade; Garra- 



478 LONDON 

way's, Robins's, Jonathan's, the Jerusalem, Lloyd's, 
were all City coffee-houses turned into rendezvous for 
merchants. The clubs of the last century deserve a 
separate paper for themselves. The London citizen 
went to his club every evening. He there solemnly 
discussed the news of the day, smoked his pipe of to- 
bacco, drank his punch, and went home by ten o'clock. 
The club was the social life of the City. For the 
ladies there was their own social life. Women lived 

much more with other 



women ; they had their 
<MiJ) J^tsr-c*. P^t^ <r Xa^/C^_^ visits and society among 




Lrs-yv-vno-r ffr**^ each other in the day- 

time. While the men 




VISITING CARD 



worked at their shops 
and offices, the women 
gadded about ; in the 
evening they sat at 
home while the men 
went out. In one fam- 
ily of my acquaintance there is a tradition belonging 
to the end of the last century, that when the then 
head of the house came home at ten the girls all hur- 
ried off to bed, the reason being that the good man's 
temper at the late hour, what with the fatigues of 
the day and the punch of the evening, was by no 
means uncertain. 

A manuscript diary of a middle-class family belong- 
ing to the time of George the First shows anything 
but a stay-at-home life. The ladies were always going 
about. But they stayed at home in the evenings. 
There was a very good reason why the women should 
stay at home. The streets were infested with prowling 



GEORGE THE SECOND 479 

thieves and with dangerous bullies: no woman could go 
out after dark in the City without an armed escort of 
her father's apprentices or his men-servants. In 1744 
the Lord Mayor complains that " confederacies of 
evil-disposed persons, armed with bludgeons, pistols, 
and cutlasses, infest lanes and private passages," and 
issue forth to rob and wound peaceful people. Fur- 
ther, that these gangs have defeated, wounded, and 
killed the officers of justice sent against them. As 
yet they had not arrived at the simple expedient of 
strengthening the police : 

As for the dangers. of venturing out after dark, they 
are summed up by Jonson : 

" Prepare for death if here at night you roam, 
And sign your will before you step from home. 
Some fiery fop, with new commission vain, 
Who sleeps in brambles till he kills his man — 
Some frolic drunkard reeling from a feast, 
Provokes a broil and stabs you for a jest. 
Yet even these heroes mischievously gay, 
Lords of the street and terrors of the way, 
Flushed as they are with folly, youth, and wine, 
Their prudent insults to the poor confine : 
Afar they mark the flambeau's bright approach, 
And shun the shining train and golden coach." 

The occupations of a young lady — not a lady of the 
highest fashion — of this time are given by a contem- 
porary writer. He says that she makes tippets, works 
handkerchiefs in catgut, collects shells, makes grot- 
toes, copies music, paints, cuts out figures and land- 
scapes, and makes screens. She dances a minuet or 
cotillion, and she can play ombre, lansquenet, qua- 
drille, and Pope Joan. These are frivolous accomplish- 



480 LONDON 

ments, but the writer says nothing of the morning's 
work — the distilling of creams, the confecting of cakes 
and puddings and sauces, the needle-work, and all the 
useful things. When these were done, why should 
not the poor girl show her accomplishments and taste 
in the cutting out of landscapes with a pair of scissors ? 

They certainly did not always stay at home. In 
the summer they sometimes went to Vauxhall, where 
the girls enjoyed the sight of the wicked world as 
much as they liked, the singing and the supper and 
the punch that followed. 

We have quite lost the mug-house. This was a kind 
of music-hall, a large room where only men were ad- 
mitted, and where ale or stout was the only drink 
consumed. Every man had his pipe ; there was a 
president, a harp was played at one end of the room, 
and out of the company present one after the other 
stood up to sing. Between the songs there were toasts 
and speeches, sometimes of a political kind, and the 
people drank to each other from table to table. 

It was a great fighting time. Every man who went 
abroad knew that he might have to fight to defend 
himself against footpad or bully. Most men carried 
a stout stick. When Dr. Johnson heard that a man 
had threatened to horsewhip him, he ordered a thick 
cudgel and was easy in his mind. There were no po- 
lice, and therefore a man had to fight. It cannot be 
doubted that the martial spirit of the country, which 
during the whole century was extraordinary, was great- 
ly maintained by the practice of fighting, which pre- 
vailed alike in all ranks. Too much order is not all 
pure gain. If we have got rid of the Mohocks and 
street scourers, we have lost a good deal of that read- 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



481 






iness to fight which firmly met those Mohocks and 
made them fly. 

I suppose that one can become accustomed to 
everything. But the gibbets which one saw stuck up 
everywhere, along the Edgevvare Road, on the river- 
side, on Blackheath, on Hampstead Heath, or Ken- 
nington Common, must have been an unpleasing sight. 
Some of the gibbets remained until early in this 
century. 

The subject of beer is of world-wide importance. It 
must be understood that all through the century the 
mystery of brewing was continually advancing. We 
finally shook off the heresies of broom, bay -berries, 
and ivy-berries as flavoring things for beer; we per- 
fected the manufacture of stout. There sprang up 
during the century what hardly existed before — a crit- 



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31 



VAUXHALL 



482 LONDON 

ical feeling for beer. It may be found in the poets 
and in the novelists. Goldsmith has it ; Fielding has 
it. There were over fifty brewers in London, where, 
as a national drink, it entirely displaced wine. The 
inns vied with each other in the excellence of their 
tap, 

" Where the Red Lion, staring o'er the way, 
Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 
'Where Calvert's broth and Parsons' black champagne 
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane." 

There were many houses where every night there was 
singing and playing, to the accompaniment of beer 
alone ; and there was at least one famous debating club 
— the Robin Hood — where stout was the only drink 
permissible. 

Here are one or two notes of domestic interest. The 
washing of the house was always done at home. And, 
which was a very curious custom, the washer-woman 
began her work at midnight. Why this was so ordered, 
I know not; but there must have been some reason. 
During the many wars of the century wheat went up 
to an incredible price. One year it was 104^. a quar- 
ter, so that bread was three times as dear as it is at 
present. Housewives in those times cut their bread 
with their own hands, and kept it until it was stale. If 
you wanted a place under Government, you could buy 
one ; the sum of £500 would get you a comfortable 
berth in the Victualling Office, for instance, where the 
perquisites, pickings, and bribes for contracts made the 
service worth having. Members of Parliament, who 
had the privilege of franking letters, sometimes sold 
the right for £300 a year. Ale-houses were marked 



GEORGE THE SECOND 483 

by chequers on the door-post — to this day the Chequers 
is a common tavern sign. Bakers had a lattice at their 
doors. All tradesmen — not servants only, but master 
tradesmen — asked for Christmas-boxes. The Fleet 
weddings went on merrily. There was great feasting 
on the occasion of a wedding, duly conducted in the 
parish church. On the day of the wedding the bride- 
groom himself waited on bride and guests. 

If the married couple were city people, they were 
regaled after the ceremony with the marrow-bones and 
cleavers — perhaps the most delectable music ever in- 
vented. It was also costly, because the musicians 
wanted drink, and plenty of it, as well as money. 

Nothing seems grander than to hear of a city illu- 
minated in honor of a victory or peace, or the King's 
birthday. For the most part, however, the grand illu- 
mination consisted of nothing but a thin candle stuck 
in a lump of clay in the window. 

In the days before the policeman there was a good 
deal of rough-and-ready justice done in the streets — 
pickpockets were held under the pump till they were 
half-dead ; informers were pelted through the streets, 
tarred, and feathered ; those worthy citizens who beat 
their wives were serenaded with pots and pans, and 
had to endure the cries of indignant matrons. The 
stocks were always in view ; the pillory was constant- 
ly in use. Now, the pillory was essentially punish- 
ment by the people ; if they sympathized with the 
culprit, he escaped even disgrace ; if they condemned 
him, addled eggs, rotten potatoes, turnips, dead cats, 
mud and filth, flying in his face, proclaimed aloud the 
opinion of the people. 

One thing more — the universal patten. When women 



484 LONDON 

went abroad all wore pattens ; it was a sensible fashion 
in days of bad pavements and muddy crossings, as 
Gay wrote kindly, yet with doubtful philology : 

"The patten now supports each frugal dame, 
Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name." 

There was also great expense and ostentation ob- 
served at funerals ; every little shopkeeper, it was 
observed, must have a hearse and half a dozen mourn- 
ing-coaches to be carried a hundred yards to the par- 
ish church-yard. They were often conducted at night, 
in order to set off the ceremony by hired mourners 
bearing flambeaux. 

The amount of flogging in the army and navy is 
appalling to think of. That carried on ashore is a 
subject of some obscurity. The punishment of whip- 
ping has never been taken out of our laws. Garroters, 
and robbers who are violent are still flogged, and 
boys are birched. I know not when they ceased to 
flog men through the streets at the cart-tail, nor when 
they left off flogging women. The practice certainly 
continued well into the century. In the prisons it 
was a common thing to flog the men. As for the se- 
verity of the laws protecting property, one illustration 
will suffice. What can be thought of laws which al- 
lowed the hanging of two children for stealing a purse 
with two shillings and a brass counter in it ? Some- 
thing, however, may be said for Father Stick. He 
ordered everything, directed everything, superintend- 
ed everything. Without him nothing was ever done ; 
nothing could be done. Men were flogged into drill 
and discipline, they were flogged into courage, they 
were flogged into obedience, boys were flogged into 



GEORGE THE SECOND 485 

learning, prentices were flogged into diligence, women 
were flogged into virtue. Father Stick has still his 
disciples, but in the last century he was king. 

We have spoken of station and order. It must be 
remembered that there was then no pretence of a clerk, 
or any one of that kind, calling himself a gentleman. 
Steele, however, notes the attempts made by small 
people to dub themselves esquire, and says we shall 
soon be a nation of armigeri. The Georgian clerk 
was a servant — the servant of his master, and a very 
faithful servant, too, for the most part. His services 
Avere rewarded at a rate of pay varying from ^"20 to 
,£100 a year. A clerk in a Government office seldom 
got more than £50, but some of them had chances of 
a kind which we now call dishonest. In other words, 
they took perquisites, commissions, considerations, 
and bribes. 

I have said, elsewhere, that the London craftsman 
sank about this time to the lowest level he has ever 
reached. In the City itself, as we have seen, he was 
carefully looked after. Each little parish consisted of 
two or three streets, where every resident was well 
known. But already the narrow bounds of the Free- 
dom had pushed out the people more and more. The 
masters — the merchants and retailers — still remained ; 
those who were pushed out were the craftsmen. When 
they left the City they not only left the parish where 
all were friends — all, at least, belonging to the same 
ship's crew; where there was a kindly feeling towards 
the poor ; where the boys and girls were taught the 
ways of virtue and the Catechism — they left the com- 
pany, to which they were no longer apprenticed, and 
which became nothing but a rich company of masters 



486 LONDON 

or men unconnected with the trade ; they left the 
Church ; they left the school ; they left all the chari- 
ties, helps, encouragements which had formerly be- 
longed to them. They went to Whitechapel, to St. 
Katherine's Precinct, to Spital Fields, to Clerkenwell. 
They lived by themselves, knowing no law except the 
law of necessity, and they drank — drank — drank. No 
energetic vicar, no active young curate, no deaconess, 
no Sister, no Bible -woman ventured among them. 
They went forth in the morning to their work, and in 
the evening they returned home to their dens. We 
read about these people in Fielding, Smollett, Colqu- 
houn, Eden, and others ; we see what they were like 
in Hogarth. Their very brutality rendered them 
harmless. Had they been a little less brutal, a little 
more intelligent — had they been like the lower sort of 
Parisian, there might have been a revolution in this 
country with brutalities as bad as any that marked 
the first act in that great drama played between 1792 
and 181 5. 

The seamy side of London in the last century has 
been laid bare by one writer after another. Because 
it seems more picturesque than the daily humdrum 
life of honest folk it is always chosen in preference to 
the latter. Gentlemen who live by their wits are 
common in every age ; they adorn the Victorian as 
much as the Elizabethan period. The rogue is always 
with us. There are, however, as we have seen, varie- 
ties belonging to each period. Thus the kidnapper, 
who has now left these islands, was formerly a very 
common variety of rogue. He was sometimes called 
crimp, sometimes kidnapper, and his trade was the 
procuring of recruits. In time of war he enlisted for 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



487 



the army and the navy, and in time of peace for the 
merchant service and the East India Company's. He 
carried on his business with all the tricks and dodges 
which suggested themselves to an ingenious mind, 




SIR JOHN FIELDING S COURT, BOW STREET 

but his favorite way of working was this : He prowled 
about places where young countrymen might be found. 
One presently appeared who had come to town on 
business or for amusement. He lent a willing ear to 
the courteous and friendly stranger who so kindly ad- 
vised him as to the sights and the dangers of the 



488 LONDON 

wicked town. He readily followed when the stranger 
proposed a glass in an honest tavern, which could be 
highly recommended. He sat down without suspicion 
in a parlor where there were two or three of the right 
sort, together with two gallant fellows in uniforms, 
sergeants of the grenadiers, or bo's'ns in the E. I. C. 
service. He listened while these heroes recounted 
their deeds of valor; he listened with open mouth; 
and, alas ! he drank with open mouth as well. Pres- 
ently he became so inflamed with the liquor that he 
acceded to the sergeant's invitation, and took the 
bounty money then and there. If he did not, he 
drank on until he was speechless. When he recov- 
ered next day, his friend — the courteous stranger of 
the day before — was present to remind him that he 
had enlisted, that the bounty money was in his pock- 
et, and that the cockade was on his hat. If he resist- 
ed he was hauled before a magistrate, the sergeants 
being ready to prove that he voluntarily enlisted. 
This done, he was conducted to a crimp's house, of 
which there were many in different parts of London, 
and there kept until he could be put on board or taken 
to some military depot. In the house, which was 
barred and locked like a prison, he was regaled with 
rum which kept him stupid and senseless. Should 
he try to escape, he was charged with robbery and 
hanged. 

The continual succession of wars enriched London 
with that delightful character, the man who had 
served in the army — perhaps borne his Majesty's com- 
mission — and had returned to live, not by his wits, 
because he had none, but by his strength of arm, his 
skill of fence, and his powers of bluster. He became 



GEORGE THE SECOND 489 

the bully. As such he was either the Darby Captain, 
who was paid to be the gaming-house bully, or the 
Cock and Bottle Captain, who was the ale-house 
bully, and fought bailiffs for his friends ; or the Tash 
Captain, who now has another name, and may be 
found near Coventry Street. 

The Setter played a game which brought in great 
gains, but was extremely difficult and delicate. He 
was the agent for ladies whose reputations were — let 
us say unjustly — cracked. His object was to restore 
them to society by honorable marriage, and not only 
to society, but also to position, credit, and luxury. A 
noble ambition ! He therefore frequented the coffee- 
houses, the bagnios, and the gambling places on the 
lookout for heirs and eldest sons, or, if possible, young 
men of wealth and position. Of course they must be 
without experience. He would thus endeavor to ob- 
tain the confidence of his victim until it became safe 
to introduce him to the beautiful young widow of 
good family, and so on ; the rest we may guess. Some- 
times, of course, the young heir was a young fortune- 
hunter, who married the widow of large fortune only 
to find that she was a penniless adventuress with 
nothing but debts, which he thus took upon himself 
and paid by a life-long imprisonment in the Fleet. 

The travelling quack we have considered. There 
was another kind who was stationary and had a good 
house in the City. This kind cured by sympathy, by 
traction, by earth-bathing, by sea-bathing, by the quin- 
tessence of Bohea tea and cocoanuts distilled together, 
by drugs, and by potions. He advertised freely , he 
drove about ostentatiously in a glass coach j he had 
all kinds of tricks to arrest attention — for instance, 



490 LONDON 

the Goddess of Hygeia was to be seen by all callers 
daily, at the house of the great Dr. Graham. The 
cruel persecution of the College of Physicians has ex- 
tinguished the quack, who, if he now exists, must have 
first passed the examinations required by the regular 
practitioner. 

The bogus auction has always been a favorite 
method of getting quick returns and a rapid turn- 
over. It is not now so common as formerly, but it 
still exists. 

The intelligence office, where you paid a shilling 
and were promised a place of great profit, and were 
called upon for another shilling and still another, and 
then got nothing, is now called an agency, and is said 
to flourish very well indeed. 

The pretended old friend, who was a common char- 
acter in 1760, has, I am told, crossed the ocean and 
changed his name. He is now a naturalized citizen 
of the United States, and his name is Bunco Steerer. 

Let me add to this account — too scanty and meagre 
— of London in the last century a brief narrative — 
borrowed, not invented — of a Sunday holiday. It has 
been seen that the City was careful about the church- 
going of the citizens. But laws were forgotten, man- 
ners relaxed ; outside the City no such discipline was 
possible, nor was any attempted. And to the people 
within the walls, as well as to those without, Sunday 
gradually became a day of holiday and pleasure. You 
shall see what a day was made of a certain Sunday in 
the summer of 17 — by a pair of citizens whose names 
have perished. 

The holiday makers slept at the Marlborough Head, 
in Bishopsgate Street, whence they sallied forth at 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



49 1 



four in the morning. Early as it was, the gates of 
the inn-yards were thronged with young people gayly 
dressed, waiting for the horses, chaises, and carriages 
which were to carry them to Windsor, Hampton 
Court, Richmond, etc., for the day. They were most- 
ly journeymen or apprentices, and the ladies with 
them were young milliners and mantua-makers. They 
first walked westward, making for the Foundling Hos- 
pital, on their way passing a rabble rout drinking sa- 
loop and fighting. Arrived at the fields lying south 




INTERIOR OF ST STEPHEN, WALBROOK 



492 LONDON 

of that institution, they met with a company of serv- 
ants, men and girls, who had stolen some of their 
masters' wine, and were out in the fields to drink it. 
They shared in the drink, but deplored the crime. It 
will be observed, as we go along, that a very credita- 
ble amount of drink accompanied this holiday. Then 
they continued walking across the fields till they came 
to Tottenham Court Road, where the Wesleyans, in 
their tabernacle, were holding an early service. Out- 
side the chapel a prize-fight was going on, with a 
crowd of ruffians and betting men. It was, however, 
fought on the cross. 

They next retraced their steps across the fields and 
arrived at Bagnigge Wells, which lay at the east of 
the Gray's Inn Road, nearly opposite what is now 
Mecklenburgh Square, and north-east of the St. An- 
drew's Burying- ground. Early as it was, the place 
already contained several hundreds of people. The 
Wells included a great room for concerts and enter- 
tainments, a garden planted with trees, shrubs, and 
flowers, and provided with walks, a fish-pond, fount- 
ain, rustic bridge, rural cottages, and seats. The ad- 
mission was threepence. They had appointed to 
breakfast at the Bank Coffee-house, therefore they 
could not wait longer here. On the way to the City 
they stopped at the Thatched House and took a gill 
of red port. 

The Bank Coffee-house was filled with people tak- 
ing breakfast and discussing politics or trade. It is 
not stated what they had for breakfast, but as one of 
the company is spoken of as finishing his dish of 
chocolate, it may be imagined that this was the usual 
drink. A lovely barmaid smiled farewell when they 



GEORGE THE SECOND 



493 



left the place. From this coffee-house they went to 
church at St. Mary-le-Strand, where a bishop preached 
a charity sermon. At the close of the sermon the 
charity children were placed at the doors, loudly im- 
ploring the benefactions of the people. After church 
they naturally wanted a 
little refreshment ; they 
therefore went to a house 
near St. Paul's, where the 
landlord provided them 
a cold collation with a 
pint of Lisbon. 

The day being fine, 
they agreed to walk to 
Highgate and to dine at 
the ordinary there. On 
the way they were beset 
by beggars in immense 
numbers. They arrived 
at Highgate just in time 
for the dinner — prob- 
ably at two o'clock. The company consisted prin- 
cipally of reputable tradesmen and their families. 
There was an Italian musician, a gallery reporter — 
that is, a man who attended the House and wrote 
down the debates from memory — and a lawyer's clerk. 
The ordinary consisted of two or three dishes and 
cost a shilling each. They had a bottle of wine and 
sat till three o'clock, when they left the tavern and 
walked to Primrose Hill. Here they met an acquaint- 
ance in the shape of an Eastcheap cheesemonger, who 
was dragging his children in a four-wheel chaise up 
the hill, while his wife carried the good man's wig 




CONCERT TICKET 



494 LONDON 

and hat on the point of his walking-stick. The hill 
was crowded with people of all kinds. 

When they had seen enough they came away and 
walked to the top of Hampstead Hill. Here, at the 
famous Spaniard's, they rested and took a bottle of 
port. 

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they left 
Hampstead and made for Islington, intending to see 
the White Conduit House on their way to the Surrey 
side. 

All these gardens — to leave these travellers for a 
moment — Ranelagh, Vauxhall, Bagnigge Wells, and 
the rest, were alike. They contained a concert and a 
promenade room, a garden laid out in pleasing walks, 
a fish-pond with arbors, and rooms for suppers, a 
fountain, a band of music, and a dancing-floor. The 
amusements of Ranelagh are thus described by a vis- 
itor who dropped into verse : 

" To Ranelagh, once in my life, 

By good-natured force I was driven ; 
The nations had ceased from their strife, 

And peace beamed her radiance from heaven. 

" (I stop to apologize for these two lines ; but everybody knows 
that strife and heaven are very neat rhymes of life and driven. 
Otherwise I admit that they have nothing to do with Ranelagh.) 

" What wonders were there to be found 
That a clown might enjoy or disdain ? 
First we traced the gay circle around, 
And then we went round it again. 

" A thousand feet rustled on mats — 
A carpet that once had been green ; 



GEORGE THE SECOND 495 

Men bowed with their outlandish hats, 

With women so fearfully keen. 
Fair maids, who, at home in their haste, 

Had left all their clothes but a train, 
Swept the floor clean as they passed, 

Then walked round and swept it again." 

At these gardens this Sunday afternoon there were 
several hundreds of people, not of the more distin- 
guished kind. They found a very pretty girl here 
who was so condescending as to take tea with them. 

Leaving the Conduit House, they paid another visit 
to Bagnigge Wells in order to drink a bowl of negus. 
By this time the place was a scene of open profliga- 
cy. They next called a coach, and drove to Kensing- 
ton Gardens, where they walked about for an hour 
seeing the great people. Among others, they had the 
happiness of beholding the D — of Gr-ft-n, accom- 
panied by Miss P — , and L— d H — y with the famous 
Mrs. W — . Feeling the want of a little refreshment, 
they sought a tea-garden in Brompton known as 
Cromwell's Gardens or Florida Gardens, where they 
drank coffee, and contemplated the beauty of many 
lovely creatures. 

It was now nine o'clock in the evening. In the 
neighborhood of the Mall they saw a great block of 
carriages on their way to Lady H — 's Sunday routs. 
The explorers then visited certain houses frequented 
by the baser sort, and were rewarded in the manner 
that might have been expected — namely, with ribaldry 
and blasphemy. As the clock struck ten they arrived 
at the Dog and Duck, St. George's Fields. From 
the Dog and Duck they repaired to The Temple of 
Flora, a place of the same description as Bagnigge 



496 LONDON 

Wells. Here, as the magistrates had refused a wine 
license, they kept a citizen and vintner on the prem- 
ises. He, by virtue of his livery, had the right to sell 
wine without a license. Our friends took a bottle 
here. The Apollo Gardens, the Thatched House, the 
Flora Tea-garden, were also places of resort of the 
same kind, all with a garden, tea and music rooms, 
and a company of doubtful morals. They drove next 
to the Bermondsey Spa Gardens, described as an ele- 
gant place of entertainment, two miles from London 
Bridge, with a walk hung with colored lamps not in- 
ferior to that of Vauxhall. There was also a lovely 
pasteboard castle and a museum of curiosities. They 
had another bottle here, and a comfortable glass of 
cherry -brandy before getting into the carriage. Fi- 
nally they reached the place whence they started at 
midnight, and after a final bumper of red port retired 
to rest. A noble Sunday, lasting from four o'clock in 
the morning till midnight. They walked twenty miles 
at least ; they drank all day long — port, Lisbon, choco- 
late, negus, tea, coffee, and cherry-brandy, besides their 
beer at dinner. On nine different occasions they 
called for a pint or a bottle. A truly wonderful and 
improving Sunday! 

A chapter on Georgian London would be incom- 
plete indeed which failed to notice the institution 
which plays so large a part in the literature of the 
period — the debtors' prison. Strange it seems to us 
who have only recently reformed in this matter, that 
a man should be locked up for life because he was 
unable to pay a trifling debt, or even a heavy debt. 
Everybody knows the Fleet, with its racquet courts 
and its prisoners ; everybody knows the King's Bench, 



GEORGE THE SECOND 497 

and the Marshalsea also is familiar to us. Here, how- 
ever, is a picture of Wood Street Compter, which is 
not so well known. In this place, one of the two City 
Compters under the sheriffs, were confined not only 
debtors, but also persons charged with night assaults 
— men or women — and felons and common thieves, 
the latter perhaps when Newgate was full. For these 
there was the strong room, in which men and women 
were locked up together, unless they could afford a 
separate room, for which they paid two shillings a 
night before commitment, and one shilling a night 
after. On the master's side, those of the debtors who 
could afford to pay for them had separate rooms, but 
miserably furnished ; on the common side there were 
two wards. In one of these, which was nearly dark 
and called the Hole, shelves were arranged along the 
wall like the bunks in a cabin ; here those who had 
any beds laid them , those who had none slept on the 
bare shelf. This was the living-room and the cook- 
ing-room, as well as the sleeping-room. The smell of 
the place, the narrator says, was intolerable. In the 
second ward of the common side lived those a little 
removed from destitution, who could pay fifteen pence 
a week for the accommodation of a bed. Otherwise 
it was the same as the first ward. The women had a 
separate ward. There was a drinking- bar here in a 
kind of cellar — " the place full of ill smells and every 
inconvenience that man could conceive." Quarrels, 
fightings, and brawls were punished by black hole. 
Men in prison on charge of night assaults were called 
rats ; women under similar charges were called mice. 

It seems as if life under such conditions must have 
been intolerable. Never to be alone, never to be 
32 



498 LONDON 

clean, never to be quiet, never to be free from the 
smell of bad cooking, confined rooms, stale tobacco, 
vile spirits ; never to be free from the society of vile 
men ; this was the punishment for those who could 
not pay their debts. Wood Street Compter was re- 
moved to Giltspur Street in 1791. 

The subject of Fleet weddings has been treated at 
length in a certain novel founded on one of them. 
They did not altogether belong to the baser sort, or 
to the more profligate sort. Many a young citizen 
arranged with his mistress to take her secretly to the 
Fleet, there to marry her, then back again and on 
their knees to the parents. This saved the expense 
of the wedding- feast, which was almost as great as 
that of the funeral-feast. 

As to trade, it was marching in giant strides, such 
as even good old Sir Thomas Gresham had not con- 
sidered possible. The increase of trade belongs to 
the historian ; we have only to notice the great ware- 
houses along Thames Street, the quays and wharves, 
the barges and lighters, the ships lying two miles in 
length in two long lines below bridge, the crowd of 
stevedores, watermen, lightermen, the never-ending 
turmoil of those who loaded and unloaded the ships, 
the solid, sober merchants dressed in brown cloth, 
with white silk stockings and white lace ruffles and 
neckerchiefs. They are growing rich — they are grow- 
ing very rich. London has long been the richest city 
in the world. 

These notes are wholly insufficient to show the 
London of George the Second. They illustrate the 
daily life of the citizens ; they also show something of 
the brutality, the drunkenness, and the rough side of 



GEORGE THE SECOND 499 

the lower levels. The better side of London — that of 
the scholars, divines, writers, and professional men — 
comes out fully in the memoirs and letters of the pe- 
riod, which are fortunately abundant. There we can 
find the stately courtesy of the better sort, the dig- 
nity, the respect to rank, the exaction of respect, the 
social gradations which were recognized by those 
above as well as those below, the religion which was 
partly formal and partly touched with the old Puri- 
tanic spirit, the benevolence and the charity of the 
upper class, coupled with their determination that 
those below shall never be allowed to combine, the 
survival of old traditions, and all the other points 
which make us love this century so much. If any 
notes on London of this period omitted mention of 
these points, they would be inadequate indeed. 

These notes — these chapters — to conclude, make 
no pretence to show more than the City life , which 
was decorous at all times, and especially during the 
last century. Of the wickedness, goodness, vice, and 
virtue that went on at the court, and among the aris- 
tocracy from age to age, nothing has been said. The 
moralist has plenty to say on this subject. Unfortu- 
nately, the moralist always picks out the worst cases, 
and wants us to believe that they are average speci- 
mens. A good deal might be said, I am of opinion, 
on the other side, in considering the many virtues ; 
the courage, loyalty, moderation, and the sense of 
honor which has always distinguished the better sort 
among the nobility. 

We have seen London from age to age. It has 
changed indeed. Yet in one thing it has shown no 



50O LONDON 

change. London has always been a city looking for- 
ward, pressing forward, fighting for the future, using 
up the present ruthlessly for the sake of the future, 
trampling on the past. As it has been, so it is. The 
City may have reached its highest point ; it may be 
about to decline , but as yet it shows no sign, it has 
sounded no note of decay, or of decline, or of growing 
age. The City, which began with the East Saxon set- 
tlement among the forsaken streets thirteen hundred 
years ago, is still in the full strength and lustihood of 
manhood — perhaps as yet it is only early manhood. 
For which, as in private duty bound, let us laud, 
praise, and magnify the Providence which has so 
guided the steps of the citizens, and so filled their 
hearts, from generation to generation, with the spirit 
of self-reliance, hope, and courage. 



NDEX 



Abergavenny House, 177 

"Abram Man," the, 416 

Agas, Ralph, map of, 274 

Ale-houses, number of, in 1736, 
476 

Alfune, founder of Church of St. 
Giles, Cripplegate, 63 

Alien priories suppressed, 240 

Alleyn, 364 

All Hallows the Great, Church of, 
Thames Street, 441 

Almshouses in the City, 238 

Alphege, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 85 

Alsatia, 120 

Amusements in Saxon and Norman 
times, 90 

Anderida destroyed, 29 

" Angler," the, 416 

Anglice Metropolis, or. The Present 
State of London, 1690, quoted, 
400 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, I, 8, 13; 
London not mentioned in, 13 

Antwerp at commencement of Eliz- 
abeth's reign, 293 

Apothecaries, 474 

Apprentices, London, 334 

Assessment of London in 1397, 184 

Augusta, fate of, after the Romans 
left, 8 

Aulaf and Swegen, 85 

Austin Friars Monastery, 112; dis- 
tinguished persons buried there, 
264 

Bagnigge Wells, 492 



Baltic Coffee-house, 477 

Bank Side, 356 

Barber-surgeons, 474 

Bernard's Castle, 288 

Bartholomew's Fair, 457 

Bassing Hall, 83 

Bath, ruins of Roman temples at, 6 

Baynard's Castle, history of, 163 

Bean tansy, 476 

Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 1 

Beer-drinking, 419 

Beer the national drink, 83, 481 

Bermondsey, Abbey of, 134, 267 

— Spa Gardens, 496 

Bethlehem Hospital, 131 

Black Friars Church destroyed, 267 

Blackfriars Theatre, 308 

Blackwell Hall, 83 

Blakeney, William, story of, 249 

Blue-coat School, 115, 303 

Bonvici, Antonio, 170 

Bow Church, Mile End Road, 135 

Bowyers' Company, 454 

Bradford -on -Avon, description of 

Church of St. Laurence at, 71 
Bread a luxury in time of Charles 

II., 421 
Brewer, Dr., and his estimate of 

mediaeval London, 155 
Breweries along the river, 50 
Bridewell Palace, 83 
Briset, Jordan, and Muriel, his 

wife, 65, 128 
Buildings small and mean until 

long after the Norman conquest, 

47 
Bull-baiting, 356, 361, 408 



502 



INDEX 



"Bully," the, in the Georgian pe- 
riod, 489 
Burghley House, 286 
Butcher Row, 446 

Calleva Atrebatum destroyed, 29 
Card-makers' Company, 454 
Card-playing temp. Elizabeth, 310 
Carmelites, the, 119 
Carpenter, John, founder of the 

City of London School, 193 
Carthusians, House of the, 120 
Castellan and standard - bearer to 

the City of London, 164 
Cedd, Bishop, 53 
Champneys, Sir John, 311 
Chapter Coffee-house, 477 
Charing Cross, 141 
Charles, King, deplorable morals 

of Court of, 371 
Charter House, 128, 266 

School, 303 

Chaucer, 149 
Chepe, 334, 337 

— East, butchers in, 217 

— of mediaeval London, 185 

— the chief market of the City, 50 

— West, mercers and haberdashers 
in, 217 

Chester, battle of, in 607, in 

Chichele, Sir Robert, 194 

Christ Church, built by Wren, 115 

Christian symbols and emblems 
found on site of Roman towns, 5 

Christ's Hospital, 115 

Church of England in time of 
George II., 436 

Churches, the thirteen large con- 
ventual, 54 

— penalties for absence from, 442 
Cistercian Order, 123 

City companies, formation of, 208 

— foreign trade of, 190 

— holidays, 236 

— of London School founded by 
John Carpenter, 193 



City residences of the nobility, 174 

— wall, Si, in 

— water supply of, 83 

— wealth of, 184 

— worthies, 194 

" Clapperdozen," the, 416 

Cloth Fair, 63 

Clubs, 477 

Cnut, 85 

Coals, duty on, to rebuild public 

buildings after the Great Fire, 

400 
Cock-fighting on Shrove Tuesday, 

224 
Cockpit Theatre, 30S 
Coffee-houses, business carried on 

at, 477 

— first started temp Charles II., 
411 

Cold Harborough, house built by 

Sir John Poultney, 166, 289 
Companies, City, formation of, 208 
Congreve's "Way of the World," 

410 
Cordvvainer Street, shoemakers in, 

217 
Cornhill, drapers in, 217 
Court of Judicature created after 

the Great Fire, 399 
Craftsmen of London, 215 
Cranmer and Waltham Abbey, 139 
Cromwell House, 265 

— Lord, 325 
Crosby Hall, 170, 289 

— Sir John, 169 

Crutched Friars' Church turned 
into a carpenter's shop and ten- 
nis court, 265 

Priory of, in 

Cuneglass, King, 3 

Curfew bell, the, 243 

Curtain Theatre, Shoreditch, 307 

Daily Life, Elizabethan, 303 
Dances in time of Elizabeth, 310 
Danes, the, 47 



INDEX 



503 



Debtors' prison in the Georgian era, 

496 
Debts, like property, destroyed by 

the Great Fire, 402 
Defoe, Daniel, and his account of 

the Plague, 377 

— trades enumerated by, 380 
Derby House, 163, 289 
Dick's Coffee-house, 411 
Dominicans, first settlement of, in 

Chancery Lane, 118 
" Dommerer," the, 416 
Dover, St. Mary's Church at, 75 
Dress of the time of George II., 458 
Drinking and fires the pests of 

London, 52 

— habits in the time of George II., 

475 

— in time of Charles II., 407 
Dryden, John, on the Great Fire, 

404 
D'Urfey, Tom, songs of, 412 
Durovernum destroyed, 29 

East India Company, the, 297 
Eastland Company, the, 297 
Eastminster, 133 

— pulled down, 263 

Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, founds 

Holywell Nunnery, 132 
Education of girls, thorough, temp. 

Elizabeth, 314 
Edward II. and the City, 205 
Edward IV. and Baynard's Castle, 

164 
Elbing, merchants of, 296 
Eleanor, Queen, a benefactor of St. 

Katherine's by the Tower, 66 
Elizabethan Daily Life, 303 

— house, the, 2S6 

— pageants, 304 

Elsing's Spital, founded in 1329, 

144 
Elsing, William, 197, 238 
England, Conquest of, completed, 

10 



Epping Forest, 233 
Erber House, history of , 169 
Ermyn Street, 23 
Estfield, Sir William, 197 
Ethelbald, King, grant of, to Bish- 
op of Rochester, 47 
Etheling, Edmund, 85 
Ethelwerd, 1 

Falcon Tavern, Bank Side, 362 
Famines in London, 240 
Fire, Great, of London, 394 

John Dryden on, 404 

destruction caused by, 397 

Fires, great, of London, 394 
Fitz-Stephen, William, 48, 51 
Fleet weddings, 483, 498 
Flemings, the, 44 
Fletchers' Company, 454 
Flogging in the army and navy, 

484 
Food in the time of George II., 

475 

— of the citizens, 236 

Fortune Theatre, Whitecross Street, 
308 

Foxe's Book of Martyrs, written at 
Waltham Abbey, 139 

Franciscans, the, 113 

Franklin, Benjamin, on beer-drink- 
ing in a London printing-house, 
420 

Fraternities, the, 147 

Fratres de Saccd, 139 

Froissart on the Londoners, 205 

Fuller, Thomas, wrote his Church 
History at Waltham Abbey, 139 

Funerals, 484 

Furniture in mediaeval times, 1S1 

Fustarers' Company, 453 

Gaming temp. Elizabeth, 310 
Gambling in the time of Charles 

II., 415 
Gardens in Saxon and Norman 

times, 89 



504 



INDEX 



Garraway's Coffee-house, 477 

Gascony wine, ingredients of, 473 

Gates of the City closed at sunset 
until 1760, 433 

Gay's Trivia, description of Lon- 
don in, 436 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1 

Gerrard's Hall in Basing Lane, 179 

Gildas, 1-3, 25, 43 

Gin-shops, number of, in 1736, 476 

Girls, education of, thorough, in 
time of Elizabeth, 314 

Gisors, John, 179 

Glasse, Mrs., and her book on cook- 
ery, 475 

Globe Theatre, Bank Side, 307, 
356 

Glovers' Company, laws and regu- 
lations of, 209 

Government situations bought in 
time of George II., 482 

Greenstead Church, Essex, 71 

Greenwich Fair, 457 

Gresham College, 301 

— House, 288 

— Sir Thomas, account of, 290, 
301 ; builds the Royal Exchange, 
294; crest of, 294 

Grey Friars, foundation of, 113 

Church, celebrated persons 

buried here, 267 

Guildhall, remains of Roman Lon- 
don in, 48 

Guilds, 50, 208 

Guthrun's Lane, goldsmiths in, 217 

Haberdashers' Company, 452 

Hainault Forest, 233 

Hampton Court, 288 

Hanseatic League, 182 

Harding, Stephen, founder of the 
Cistercian Order, 123 

Harold at Waltham Abbey, 138 

Hengist and Horsa, 9 

Henry VI. erects new grammar- 
schools, 240, 303 



Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 

129 
Heralds' College, 162, 174 
Herbalist, 474 
Holy Trinity, Aldgate, founded by 

Queen Matilda, 64, 11 1 

Church, Minories, 132 

Holywell Nunnery, 132 
Horsa, Hengist and, 9 
Household accounts of a family, 

1677-79, 4i6 

— in time of George II., 465 

— furniture, inventory of, of new- 
ly-married pair, temp. 14th cen- 
tury, 253 

Hudson's Bay Company, 375 
" Huffs," 415 
Hutchinson, Lucy, 314 

Ironmongers' Lane, ironmongers 
in, 217 

Jamaica Coffee-house, 477 
Jerusalem Coffee-house, 478 
Jesus Commons, foundation of, 144 
Jonathan's Coffee-house, 478 
Jonson, Ben, 363, 365 
Justice under the Plantagenets, 245 
Jutes, the, 9, 27, 28 

Kidnappers of the Georgian era, 

486 
Kingston -on -Hull, Trinity House 

at, 87 
Knights Hospitallers, Church of, 

blown up with gunpowder, 266 

Ladies' Bower, the, 89 

— occupation of, in time of George 
L, 478 

Latroon, Afeiiton, Life of , 414 
Lepers, lazar-house established in 

St. Giles in the Fields for, 141 
Life in the time of George II., 460 
" Limitour," the, in Chaucer, 149 
Lloyd's Coffee-house, 478 



INDEX 



505 



Lof tie's History of London, 13, 22 
Lombard Street, drapers in, 217 

Gresham's shop in, 301 

London a city of ruins, temp, Eliza- 
beth, 263 

— commercial centre of the world, 
temp. Elizabeth, 293 

— conquest of, by the men of Es- 
sex, compared with that of Jeru- 
salem by Titus, 40 

— conversion of, a.d. 604, 45 

— craftsmen of, 215 

— described by William Fitz -Ste- 
phen, 48 

— desolate state of, after the Ro- 
man period, 34 

— drinking and fires the pests of, 5 2 

— found deserted by the East Sax- 
ons, 34 

— mediaeval, description of, 157, 
185 

— merchant generally a gentleman, 
200 

— municipal history of, 91 

— not mentioned in Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle, 12 

— population of, temp. Richard II., 

49 

— rebuilding of, after Great Fire, 

39S 

— Saxon and Norman, described, 
92 

— veritable mother of saints, 45 
London Bridge, chapel on, 7S 
first stone, 77 

songs on, 81 

Londoners in the time of Elizabeth, 

278 
Long Bowstring-makers' Company, 

454 
Loriners' Company, 454 

Mail-coaches, 464 
Malpas, Philip, 238 
Manners, City, in time of Charles 
II., 407 



Manny, Sir Walter, 120 
Matilda, Queen of Henry I., 65 

— wife of King Stephen, founds 
St. Katherine's by the Tower, 65 

Maurice, Bishop, 53 
May-day in the City, 231 
May Fair, 457 
May-pole, the, 332 
Mediaeval furniture, iSr 

— London, description of, 157 

— names, survival of, 19 
Megusers' Company, 453 
Mellitus, first Bishop of London, 

39 
Mercers' Chapel, 142 
Merchant adventurers, the, 295, 296 

— London, generally a gentleman, 
200 

— Taylors' School, 303 
Misrule, feast of, 309 

" Mithridate " water, 473 

Mitre Tavern, 351 

Monastery towns grow rapidly and 

prosper, 46 
Monk in Chaucer, 150 
Moorfields, people camped in, after 

the Great Fire, 399 
More, Sir Thomas, and Crosby 

Hall, 170 
Morris-dancing, 233 
Mughouse a kind of music-hall, 4S0 
" Mumpus," the, 416 
Municipal London, history of, 91 
Mystery plays, 94 

Nennius, 1 
New Abbey, 133 

pulled down, 263 

Newspapers about 1750, 465 
Nobility, residences of, in City, 177 
Norman House, description of, 86 

— London, monuments of, 52 
Northumberland House, 28S 
site originally of Hospital of 

St. Mary Rounceval, 141 
Nunneries in Saxon times, 93 



506 INDEX 

Old Jewry, branch of the Fratres 

de Saccd established in, 139 
" Oxford Clerk " in Chaucer, 150 

Pads, 415 
Pageants, City, 224 

— Elizabethan, 305 
Palaces of the nobility in the City, 

174 

Papey College, 144 

Pardon Church-yard, 121 

" Pardoner " in Chaucer, 153 

Parish organization in time of 
George II., 439 

Patten-makers' Company, 454 

Pattens, 484 

Pecock, Reginald, Bishop of Chich- 
ester, 194 

Pembroke, Earl, and Baynard's 
Castle, 166 

Pepys' Diary, 417 

Pepys on the Great Fire of London, 

395 

— on the Plague, 377 
Perranazabuloe Church, 75 
Pewterers' Company, 454 
Philippa, Queen, a benefactor of 

St. Katherine's by the Tower, 66 
"Philo Puttonists," 415 
Philpot, Sir John, 190 
Picard, Sir Henry, 179 
Pilgrims, 57 

— consecration of, 60 

— office of, 58 
Pillory, the, 247 
" Pimpinios," 415 
Plague, the, 376 

— at Astrakhan in 1879, 387 

— at Marseilles in 1720, 387 

— Daniel Defoe on, 377 

— loss caused to trade by, 384 

— Pepys on, 377 

— remedies for, advertised, 408 

— water, 473 
Plagues, 376 

— of London, 120 



Plagues of 1603 and 1625, 387 
Plantagenet London, religious 
houses the most conspicuous feat- 
ure of, 107 
Poisoning, men boiled and women 

burned for, 318 
Population of London according to 

Fitz-Stephen, 84 
Post-office rates about 1750, 464 
Prentice, London, temp, Charles 

II., 414 
Prices of food about 1750, 462 

in time of Charles II., 462 

" Prioress," the, in Chaucer, 149 
Punishments under the Plantage- 
nets, 318 

Quacks, 474 
Queen's wardrobe, 174 
Quintain, the, 304 

Rahere, 55, 56, 60, 63 
Rainbow Coffee-house, 411 
Rainwell, Sir John, 197 
Ranelagh Gardens, 494 
Red Bull Theatre, St. John Street. 

307 
Red Cross, Order of, ill 
Reeds, floors covered with, 87 
Reformation, the, and destruction 

of ecclesiastical buildings, 270 
Religious houses the most conspic- 
uous feature of Plantagenet Lon- 
don, 108 
Rents about 1750, 461 
Richard of Cirencester, 1 
Richard II. and the City, 206 
Riley's Memorials of London, 21 
Robins's Coffee-house, 47S 
Rogues and vagabonds, temp. Eliza- 
beth, 314 
Roman customs, no trace of in 
London, 21 

— remains, 42 

— London, City wall about three 
miles long, 17 



INDEX 



507 



Roman London dependent on sup- 
plies from without 24 

description of, 12-1S 

probable population of, 17 

the only port in the kingdom, 

18 

— street, no trace of, in London, 
20 

— town, construction of, 20 
Rooks, 415 

Royal African Company, the, 297 

— Exchange, 334 

temp. Charles II., 410 

— Society, Institution of, 375 
" Ruffins," 415 

" Rufflers," 415 

Russian Company, the, 297 

Rutupise destroyed, 29 

St. Alphege Church, 145 

St. Anthony, patron and saint of 

the grocers, 208 
St. Bartholomew's Priory, 267 
St. Bartholomew the Great, built 

by Rahere, 55 
St. Botolph, church dedicated to, 

46 
St. Clare, abbey of, called the Min- 

ories, 132, 263 
St. Dunstan, church dedicated to, 46 
St. Dunstan's in the East, church 

of, built after the Great Fire, 400 
St. Edmund the Martyr, church 

dedicated to, 46 
St. Erkenwald builds Bishopsgate, 

45 
St. Ethelburga, 45 
St. Giles, Cripplegate, founded by 

Alfune, 63 

in the Fields, church of, 140 

St. Giles's Hospital, founded by 

Queen Matilda, 63 
St. Helen, church of, 112 
St. Helen's Nunnery becomes the 

property of the Leathersellers' 

Company, 266 



St. James, Clerkenwell, parish church 

of, 131 
St. John of Jerusalem, priory of, 
65, 12S; destroyed by rebels un- 
der Wat Tyler, 130 
St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, 128 
St. Katherine's by the Tower, 65 
St. Magnus, church dedicated to, 46 
St. Martin, the patron saint of sad- 
dlers, 208 

Outwich, church of, 297 

St. Martin's le Grand, a house of 
Augustine Canons, 113 

church of, tavern built on 

site of, 267 
— — sanctuary and collegiate 

church of, 55 
St. Mary Axe, 328; skinners in, 217 

of Bethlehem, hospital of, 131 

Overies, legend of, 67 

Rounceval, hospital of, at 

Charing Cross, 141 
St. Mary's, or Bow Church, 135 

Spital, hospital of, 131 

destroyed, 266 

St. Michael's Church, choir and 
aisles rebuilt by Sir William Wal- 
worth, 143 

College, Crooked Lane, 143 

St. Olaf, church dedicated to, 46 
St. Osyth, Queen and Martyr, 45 
St. Paul's, Cathedral of, 53, 54, 
109, 346 

Cross, 344 

first church of, destroyed by 

fire, 48 

School, 303 

St. Swithin, church dedicated to, 46 
St. Thomas of Aeon, College of, 142 
St. Thomas's Hospital, 134, 146 
St. Vedast, church of, 76 
Salutation of the Mother of God, 

house of the, 120 
Saxon house, description of, 86 
— London, destroyed by fire 1 1 35 , 
48 



5o8 



INDEX 



Saxon London, darkest period of 
any, 48 

foreign merchants in, 44 

no remains of, 53 

— women, employment of, 92 
Saxons, East, 35 

before and after conversion 

to Christianity, 44 

— fond of vegetables, 87 
Schools, Grammar, erected by Hen- 
ry VI., 240, 303 

in time of Elizabeth, 302 

— of the alien priories suppressed, 
240 

Sebbi, King, 53 

Selds, 186 

Semes Tower, 83 

Servants, ladies used to beat, 310 

— troop of, a mark of state, 310 

" Setter," the, in the Georgian pe- 
riod, 489 

Sevenoke, Sir William, 194, 216 

" Shabbaroons," 415 

Shakespeare, William, 364 

Sion College, 269 

Smithfield, horse-fair in, 51 

" Sompnour" in Chaucer, 150 

Soper's Lane, pepperers and gro- 
cers in, 217 

Southwark Fair, 457 

Sports, 51, 223 

Stage-coaches, 465 

Staple, Sir Richard, 297 

Steelyard, the, 182 

Still-room, importance of the, 473 

Stodie, Sir John, 179, 238 

Stow, John, the antiquary, 320 

Sunday amusements in the Georgian 
period, 490 

Sutton, Thomas, 266 

Swan Inn, Dowgate, 368 

— with Two Necks, the, 465 

Taxes of a house about 1750, 462 
Tea becomes cheaper, temp. Charles 
II., 410 



Tea-drinking, 467 

— John Wesley on, 470 
Temple Bar, 433 

— Church, the, 67 

Thames, River, in Tudor times, 366 

— Street, fishmongers in, 217 
Theatre companies, temp. Elizabeth, 

307 

— first, built in 1570, 307 
Theatres at end of sixteenth cen- 
tury, 307 

Tobacco, use of, spreads rapidly, 

313 
Tofig, the royal standard-bearer, 136 
Tom's Coffee-house, 411 
Torgnton, Desiderata de, hanged 

for theft, 247 
Torold, Roger, imprisoned for 

speaking disrespectfully of the 

mayor, 247 
Tournaments, temp. Elizabeth, 304 
Tower of London, 82 
" Town Parson " in Chaucer, 150 

— Royal, 82 

Trade, foreign, of City, 190 

— great advance of, in time of Eliz- 
abeth, 289, 295 

— : loss and injury caused to, by the 

Plague, 384 
Trades carried on in the City, 218 

— enumerated by Daniel Defoe, 380 

— of the City allotted their own 
places of work and sale, 50 

Tradition, continuity of, 20 
Turkey Company, the, 297 

Vegetables as part of daily diet 

reintroduced, 313 
Venice treacle, 473 
Vicinal Way, 23 
Vintners' Hall, 179 
Vintry, .the, 179 
Vox Civi tatis, tract on the 

Plague, 392 

Wages of the craftsmen, 243 



INDEX 



509 



Walls, City, 433 

Waltham Abbey Church, 135 

Cranmer at, 139 

Foxe's Book of Martyrs writ- 
ten here, 139 

Harold at, 1 38 

history of, 136-139 

Thomas Fuller wrote his 

Church History here, 1 39 

Walworth, Sir William, 194 

Wardens of Companies, 211 

Washington, arms of, in Holy Trin- 
ity Church, Minories, 132 

Water, supply of, 83 

Watling Street, 23 

Weavers, Guild of, 208 

Wells, Sir John, 197 

Wesley, John, on tea-drinking, 470 

Wethell, Richard, 311 

Wheat, price of, in time of George 
II., 4S2 



" Whip Jack," the, 416 

Whitawers' Company, 453 

White Friars, the house of the Car- 
melites, 119 

Whitefriars Theatre, 308 

Whittington, Richard, 180, 199, 
290, 301 

— College of, 143 

" Wild Rogue," the, 416 

William of Wykeham, 55 

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 297 

Winchester House, 264, 269, 289 

Window-tax, 462 

Wine-drinking, introduced by Nor- 
mans, 88 

Women, English, excel in embroid- 
ery, 92 

Wonderful Year, The, pamphlet on 
plague, 387 

Wood Street Compter, a prison, 
497 



THE END 



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